Pope to push Mediterranean agenda in visit to Corsica

ROME – After weeks of rumors about a potential papal visit, the French Diocese of Ajaccio announced this week that Pope Francis will make a daytrip to the island of Corsica next month, furthering prioritizing the Mediterranean region.

Pope Francis will visit Corsica Dec. 15, according to an announcement on the website of the local Diocese of Ajaccio, which is led by Cardinal François-Xavier Bustillo, who got a red hat from Pope Francis in 2023.

The theme of the pope’s daytrip will be, “Jesus went about doing good.” The trip will come just two days before Francis’s 88th birthday on Dec. 17.

It will mark the first papal trip to the French Mediterranean island, which is the fourth largest in the Mediterranean and is also one of France’s poorest regions, with some 20 percent of the population living in poverty.

Francis’s visit to the island, which has yet to be formally announced by the Vatican, but which has been rumored for weeks, will mark his 47th foreign trip since his election to the papacy in 2013, and it will be his third time in France.

Though he has not yet made an official state visit to France, the pontiff travelled to Strasbourg in 2014 to address the European Parliament and the Council of Europe, and he went to Marseilles in 2023 for a high-profile meeting of political and ecclesial leaders in the Mediterranean region.

French President Emmanuel Macron invited Pope Francis to come to Paris for the Dec. 8 reopening of the city’s famed Notre Dame cathedral after a fire destroyed vast portions of it in 2019. That day, however, the pope will be celebrating Mass with a slew of new cardinals who will have received a red hat the day before, during a Dec. 7 consistory.

So far in his 11-year reign, Pope Francis has made a point of passing over larger, international power-hubs and has instead prioritized smaller, poorer, and more remote cities and nations considered to be on the global “periphery,” often where Catholics themselves are a minority.

In each of his stops in French cities, Francis has made a point of driving home his agenda on migration and climate, as well as his vision for a Europe that is more welcoming and connected to its Christian roots in terms of ecclesial but also secular policy.

He has consistently referred to the Mediterranean as the world’s largest graveyard, advocating safe and secure passage for migrants seeking entry into Europe.

Though his visit has yet to be officially announced, and no schedule has yet been published, Pope Francis while in Corsica is expected celebrate the concluding Mass for a two-day conference on popular religiosity throughout the Mediterranean region.

According to a flier on the Diocese of Ajaccio’s website, the conference will begin Dec. 14 with speeches on evangelization, living popular religiosity amid a strict national policy of laicité (church/state separation), and popular piety and how it is lived in specific local contexts.

It is possible that Pope Francis while in Corsica will deliver a reminder to Europe and the Mediterranean of their social duties after parliamentary elections this summer saw a strong victory for Europe’s far-right, anti-migrant parties espousing an increasingly skeptical attitude toward the European project.

Francis has consistently advocated for a more united Europe, and for the strengthening of institutions such as the European Union, amid growing nationalist sentiment that has challenged such institutions in recent years. He has also repeatedly called on European leaders to put the common good, and the needs of the most vulnerable, above personal or national interests.

His message in Corsica, known for its mountainous terrain and as the birthplace of Napoleon, will likely allude to Europe’s deeply Christian roots and could include calls for greater social responsibility toward migrants and the poor, and for attention to the climate issue.

Pope Francis made the Mediterranean a top priority throughout his pontificate, visiting Malta, the Greek island of Lesbos and the Italian islands of Lampedusa and Sardinia, in addition to Marseilles.

He has also inaugurated and supported a series of Rencontres Méditerranéennes, or “Mediterranean Meetings” attended by dozens of political and ecclesial leaders to address sensitive issues in the region such as poverty, dangerous migration routes, climate, war and violent conflict, and human trafficking, among other things.

Corsica is a majority Catholic nation, with some 81 percent of the local population of roughly 356,000 belonging to the Catholic Church, meaning there could be a significant turnout for the first papal visit to the island.

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