Pope Francis invited to Marseille on September 23

A trip by Pope Francis to Marseille seems to be taking shape for the start of the next school year. In a press release published on Friday January 20 on the website of his diocese, Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, Archbishop of Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône) indicated that he had invited the successor of Saint Peter to visit the city on Saturday 23 September, as part of the Mediterranean Meetings scheduled from September 18 to 24.

This event, the first two editions of which had so far been held in Italy – in Bari in 2020, and in Florence in 2022 – should enable mayors, “bishops and young people from the five shores of the Mediterranean to get together, to share their particular experiences and to reflect on what, in the specificity of each person’s experience, can benefit everyone”, specifies the short diocesan message. This, while the perimeter of the “Mare Nostrum”, endowed with “a cultural and historical heritage of immense wealth”, “faces several major challenges: political crises, economic inequalities, human migrations and climate change”.

The project has been on the job for a long time. Mentioned several times by the French authorities, this invitation had already been made almost two years ago by Cardinal Aveline – before he received the bar. But it really took on relief when the pope assured that he would go “perhaps” “next year” to Marseille “for the Mediterranean meeting” in an interview published on December 18 by the Spanish daily ABC, in which he further indicated that it would not therefore be a “trip to France” – to be understood here as an official visit by the Vatican Head of State to France.

“My first choice was to visit the small countries of Europe,” he insisted. I haven’t been to any major country in Europe. I went to Strasbourg, and not for France, but to visit the European institutions. In 2014, the Pope spent a few hours at the European Parliament and the Council of Europe. This desire not to make a State visit to France is part of the priority given by the Pope, since the beginning of his pontificate, to trips to what he calls the “peripheries” of the world, whether either “geographical” or “existential”.

In an interview with La Croix, published on August 11, Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline spoke of the pope’s interest in the city of Marseilles and the Mediterranean region in these terms: “I feel that the question of the Mediterranean is close to his heart. heart (…). During a discussion with him, I also understood that he liked Marseille because it is on a dividing line which is also a meeting place: both gateway to the Orient and gateway to the ‘West. »

In recent weeks, the Archbishop of Marseilles had the opportunity to set the first outlines of this trip project – which would be envisaged by Rome in the form of a round trip in one day – during one of his many trips to the Vatican, where he goes twice a month to take part in the plenary meetings of the Dicastery for Bishops, of which he is a member. However, this visit has not yet been officially announced by the Vatican.

Before Francis’ brief stay in Strasbourg, the last visit by a pope to France dated back to 2008 with Benedict XVI. That of a pontiff in Marseille dates back to 1533, with the arrival of Julius de Medici (1478-1534), elected pope ten years earlier, taking the name of Clement VII. The latter had come to Marseille for the wedding of the youngest son of King Francis I, the future King Henry II, with his niece Catherine de Medici.

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