This Sunday, it is Cardinal François Bustillo who will have the honor of welcoming Pope Francis to his diocese of Ajaccio. Unknown to the general public until today, the latter, sometimes criticized by politicians, is now making the rounds of television sets and radio studios.
For the first visit of Pope Francis to Corsica, Cardinal François Bustillo will have the difficult task of welcoming the clichéd sovereign to his diocese of Ajaccio. Often described as atypical, and criticized by certain politicians, here is the journey of the 56-year-old former Franciscan friar.
Until five years ago, no one knew his name. Having become bishop of Corsica in two years (2021) then cardinal (2023), the face of this Church figure native of Spain now makes the front pages of magazines and his singing voice colors television sets and radio studios.
“Cardinal Bustillo is a maverick,” one Roman observer said of the latter. In Corsica, in recent days, there is no shortage of praise for this cardinal who persuaded the pope to come. “He pleases, not because he is Basque, but because he loves people,” assured Thibault Carli, a 35-year-old deacon in the village of Moltifao. “He’s so much like us; and if there is a Corsican culture, he is the example,” he insisted.
This spontaneous support of the Corsican people for the rising star of the French episcopate undoubtedly finds its roots in the atypical profile of this bishop who is not from France.
A diligent journey
François-Xavier Bustillo was born in 1968 in Pamplona, Spain. He grew up in a Catholic family of which he was the eldest. At ten years old, he joined the minor Franciscan seminary in the Baztan valley, near Espelette in France.
In 1992, he became solemnly professed and committed himself definitively to the Order. He then moved to Toulouse to continue his studies at the Catholic university, with a master’s degree in theology which he obtained in 1997. In the meantime, he became a deacon in 1993 and was ordained a priest the following year. in Pamplona, his city of birth, by Cardinal Fernando Sebastian Aguilar.
In 2018, he became the guardian of the Saint-Maximilien-Kolbe convent in Lourdes. He also found himself entrusted by Bishop Nicolas Brouwet with the protection of minors and vulnerable people in the diocese of Tarbes and Lourdes, and was once again appointed member of the episcopal council.
François Bustillo was ordained bishop by the future cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, archbishop of Marseille, in the imperial city on June 13, 2021. In Corsica, his appointment quickly gained unanimous support. “He is everywhere, at all the local festivals and he quickly met all the priests… He liked it, and we quickly forgot that he was not born here,” a priest from his diocese told I.MEDIA .
The spectacular ascent
The unexpected choice of Pope Francis to make him a cardinal in July 2023 is the source of immense pride among the Corsicans. During the months following his cardinalate, François Bustillo increased his interviews with the press in France, notably appearing on the front page of Paris Match.
Unlike his predecessors from mainland France, Cardinal Bustillo quickly attracted the sympathy of autonomist circles by saying he was in favor of greater political and cultural autonomy for the island. His stature and his unifying words meant that he was strongly courted by the different political movements in Corsica.
Last March, when the Corsican Assembly adopted a constitutional project for autonomy for the island, Cardinal Bustillo did not oppose it, even seeing it as an opportunity to bring peace without harming the unity of the French nation. A position that irritates certain political leaders in Paris.
Thus, during a lunch last May with senators around Cardinal Bustillo, Bruno Retailleau, then senator, expressed his great disagreement with the Bishop of Ajaccio. He saw in this autonomy project a constitutionalization of “communitarianism in a country already archipellized”.
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