► 8:10 a.m. – A look back at the popes’ previous trips to France
After Marseille and Strasbourg, this trip to Corsica is François’ third trip to French soil. Before him, Benedict XVI and John Paul II had notably visited Lourdes and Paris. These trips were experienced each time in France as an event.
► 7:50 a.m. – Pope Francis’ plane has taken off
Pope Francis’ plane took off from Fiumicino airport in Rome this Sunday, December 15. He should arrive in Ajaccio around 9 a.m.
► 07:35 a.m. – The papacy and the Isle of Beauty, age-old links
Francis is the first pope to set foot on Corsican soil. Nevertheless, the Isle of Beauty maintains a long relationship with the Vatican, beginning with the special attention that Pope Gregory I (590-604) paid to it in his correspondence.
► 7:30 a.m. – Program for the day
According to the Vatican, the pope arrives in Ajaccio early in the morning and will leave shortly after 6 p.m. He will deliver a speech there during the concluding session of the conference on “popular religiosity in the Mediterranean”, then will exchange with the clergy at Notre-Dame de l’Assomption Cathedral. He will celebrate a public mass in the afternoon before taking off again at the end of the day, just after meeting Emmanuel Macron at Ajaccio airport.
Hello and welcome to this Live dedicated to the trip of Pope Francis to Corsica.
Swiss
