AJACCIO, Corsica — Pope Francis’ one-day go to to the French island of Corsica on Sunday, two days earlier than his 88th birthday, places a twin concentrate on the Mediterranean, highlighting native traditions of fashionable piety on the one hand and migrant deaths and wars on the opposite.
The go to to Corsica’s capital Ajaccio, birthplace of Napoleon, might be one of many briefest of his papacy past Italy’s borders, nearly 9 hours on the bottom, together with a 40-minute go to with French President Emmanuel Macron.
It’s the first papal go to to the island, which Genoa ceded to France in 1768 and is situated nearer to the Italian mainland than France.
Corsica stands out from the remainder of secularized France as a very religious area, with 92 confraternities, or lay associations devoted to works of charity or piety, with over 4,000 members.
“It means that there’s a stunning, mature, grownup and accountable collaboration between civil authorities, mayors, deputies, senators, officers and spiritual authorities,’’ Ajaccio Cardinal François Bustillo advised The Related Press. “There isn’t any hostility between the 2. And that may be a very optimistic side as a result of in Corsica there isn’t any ideological hostility.”
Papa Francescu, the pope’s title in Corsican, will deal with greater than 400 individuals on the Convention on Widespread Religiosity within the Mediterranean, organized by the bishop of Ajaccio, Cardinal Francois-Xavier Bustillo.
The pope’s remarks will embody reflections on native non secular traditions, particularly strongly held in Corsica, together with the cult of the Virgin Mary, identified regionally because the Madunnuccia, which protected the island from the plague in 1656 when it was nonetheless underneath Genoa.
“The Mediterranean is the backdrop of this journey, surrounded by conditions of disaster and battle,’’ which is predicted to be echoed within the pope’s deal with, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni mentioned. The pope has typically referred to the tragedy of migration, which he has mentioned has turned the Mediterranean into “Europe’s largest cemetery.”
After the convention deal with, he’ll journey to the Seventeenth-century cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta to fulfill with clergy, stopping alongside the way in which on the statue of the Madunnuccia. Francis will have fun Mass on the Place d’Austerlitz park, the place it’s mentioned Napoleon performed as a baby. Round 7,000 trustworthy are anticipated. He’ll meet privately with Macron on the airport earlier than departing for the 50-minute flight again to Rome.
The pontiff pointedly didn’t make the journey to Paris earlier this month for the pomp surrounding the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral following the devastating 2019 hearth. The go to to Corsica appears much more suited to Francis’ priorities than a grand cathedral reopening, emphasizing the “church of the peripheries.”
It’s Francis’ third journey to France, every time avoiding Paris and the protocols {that a} state go to entails. He visited the port of Marseille in 2023, on an in a single day go to to take part in an annual summit of Mediterranean bishops, and went to Strasbourg in 2014 to deal with the European Parliament and Council of Europe.
Corsica is house to greater than 340,000 folks and has been a part of France since 1768. However the island has additionally seen pro-independence violence and has an influential nationalist motion, and final yr Macron proposed granting it restricted autonomy.
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