Pope Francis will visit Corsica on December 15, but will not be present a week earlier for the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris. A choice that raises several questions.
The pope will go to Corsica but not to Notre-Dame de Paris: faced with the astonishment that this program may arouse, several French bishops highlight Francis' attachment to the “peripheries” and his calendar constraints. And for good reason, the Vatican announced this Saturday that Pope Francis would go to Ajaccio on December 15 for a one-day “apostolic trip”, at the invitation in particular of the bishop of the diocese François-Xavier Bustillo.
Even before the visit was confirmed, the rumor had spread during the autumn meeting of French bishops (CEF) at the beginning of November in Lourdes, arousing satisfaction… But also astonishment. “A few bishops were annoyed” by the announcement, one of them said.
Between false arrival and timetable problem
“The Pope is emotional, he let himself be convinced by Bustillo!” said another French bishop. The Bishop of Corsica refutes any “seduction operation”: he certainly discussed such a trip with the Pope in April, but “I did not force it”, he assured. This visit goes all the less unnoticed as the Pope will not attend, a week earlier, the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris on the weekend of December 7 and 8.
However, everyone recalls it, like the president of the CEF Eric de Moulins-Beaufort: “it was never really a question of the pope coming” to Paris. “The star of the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris is Notre-Dame de Paris” and François did not want to “look away from it on this occasion,” he said.
In Paris, several heads of state and artists have been invited to the ceremony which will see Emmanuel Macron deliver a speech in front of the cathedral. Several bishops also call not to make a “trial of intent” to the pope on this subject. “It’s not an attitude against France,” assured one, nor “distrust of the president” according to another.
“The Pope is an unpredictable person who works a lot by feeling,” recalled a Vatican source. Other calendar constraints: the pope is held at the Vatican on December 7 and 8 by a “consistory” where he will create 21 cardinals; and it would have been difficult to delay the trip, given the traffic jam of events in Rome in 2025, the year of the “jubilee” (celebrated every 25 years).
