Pope Francis will journey to the Mediterranean island of Corsica on Dec. 15, making yet one more go to to France that avoids the capital and all of the pomp and protocol that accompanies a correct state go to. The one-day go to to the French island area, confirmed Saturday by the Vatican, is to shut out a diocesan convention on fashionable piety in Ajaccio, the capital.
Whereas Francis will meet with President Emmanuel Macron on the airport earlier than returning to Rome, the journey is not directly a snub of the French chief who had invited Francis to journey to Paris the earlier weekend to preside over the grand reopening of Notre Dame.
Francis made clear in September that he wouldn’t take part within the ceremony, telling reporters flat-out “I gained’t go to Paris,” after a French publication reported that he would attend the Dec. 8 reopening of the cathedral after the devastating 2019 hearth.
Francis subsequently introduced a busy Vatican agenda for that weekend, presiding over a consistory to create new cardinals Dec. 7 and collaborating in his annual commemoration of the Dec. 8 feast day devoted to the Virgin Mary.
The Dec. 15 occasion in Corsica appears much more suited to Francis’ priorities than a grand cathedral reopening, emphasizing the “church of the peripheries.” He’ll shut out a Corsican church convention on “fashionable piety within the Mediterranean.”
It’s an analogous theme that introduced Francis to the southern French port of Marseille in 2023, when he made an in a single day go to to take part in an annual summit of Mediterranean bishops. His earlier journey to France was firstly of his preach, when he made a one-day go to to Strasbourg on Nov. 25, 2014, to deal with the European Parliament and Council of Europe.
Corsica is house to greater than 340,000 folks and has been a part of France since 1768. However the island has additionally seen pro-independence violence and has an influential nationalist motion, and final 12 months Macron proposed granting it restricted autonomy.
Francis has careworn that he desires to prioritize smaller Catholic communities on the peripheries fairly than the massive facilities of Christianity. Because of this, his overseas journeys have tended to keep away from main European capitals in favor of far-flung church buildings in poorer components of the world.
