Pope Francis will not be present for the reopening of Notre-Dame, the Archbishop of Paris nevertheless hopes for “a message” from the sovereign pontiff.
The Archbishop of Paris Laurent Ulrich said on Wednesday his good hope for a message from Pope Francis for the reopening of Notre-Dame, even if the sovereign pontiff will not make the trip in accordance with his habit of favoring “small countries”.
Asked about the Pope's absence during the reopening of the cathedral on the weekend of December 7 and 8, Mgr Ulrich assured that he had known this for “a very long time” and explained that this “corresponds to the way in which he envisages his ministry”.
The pope in fact has the “habit of going rather where his predecessors did not come so much”, that is to say “in small countries, where there are few Christians, few Catholics, in countries where there are difficult situations of war or tension.” But “I hope we will have a message from him,” he added.
A conference in Corsica
As for the still unofficial visit of the pope to Corsica the following weekend, “it is a conference (…) on popular religion and popular piety”, which is a “very also consistent with what the Pope wishes to support, develop and help,” added the Archbishop of Paris.
That this conference takes place a week after the reopening of Notre Dame “is in a certain way fortuitous, because the year 2025 will be very busy in its calendar with the jubilee year”.
Indeed every 25 years, the Church celebrates the jubilee of the birth of Jesus, he recalled, and on this occasion “Rome is greatly mobilized and the Pope also for this type of thing”.
