Just as much as those of the Lord, the ways of Pope Francis are inscrutable, and those which lead him to France even more so. After Strasbourg, in November 2014, then Marseille in September 2023, it is therefore in Corsica that the head of the Catholic Church has chosen to go, on December 15. A visit that is still unofficial, but which the Ajaccio authorities are already actively preparing, and which Cardinal Bustillo, appointed bishop of Ajaccio by Francis in May 2021, welcomes in Corse Matin while defusing possible controversies in advance. “First of all, [il y a] the Pope's desire to visit the peripheries. He [le pape] does not go to the capitals.” Which therefore disqualifies Paris, which has long hoped for a pontifical visit and which thought it would win thanks to the reopening of Notre-Dame, which will be celebrated as a great national holiday on the 7th and December 8th.
Heads of State and crowned heads from around the world are expected there for a weekend of secular and republican communion, as the fire in the cathedral on April 15, 2019, moved well beyond the Catholic world. The President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, who has made the reconstruction of the Gothic monument a very strong axis of his mandates, has therefore logically invited the Holy Father to come and celebrate the inaugural mass of the reopening, which will take place on Sunday 8 December morning.
But last September, upon his return from a trip to Asia, the Pope informed the journalists present with him on the plane that he would not come to Paris. An astonishing choice, but one that the president of the conference of bishops of France, Mgr Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, wished to clarify last November, as Le Figaro recalls: “I would like to say that there was never any question that the pope comes to the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris, for a very simple reason: the star is the cathedral and not the pope's visit to France which is an event in itself. I believe the pope does! understood from the start.” Of which act.
It is therefore Ajaccio that the Argentine pontiff will honor with his presence on December 15, to the delight of the Corsicans who are closing a conference there that weekend on popular piety. In Napoleon's hometown, people are already busy preparing an open-air mass in the Casone green theater, with giant screens deployed throughout the city. 100,000 people are already expected. As for which political figure will be alongside Cardinal Bustillo to welcome the Holy Father, the question remains open but the Bishop of Ajaccio, as he recently reminded the Sunday Journal, does not exclude that Emmanuel Macron will do so. travel… Response on December 15.
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