Vatican City
Reuters
Pope Francis will visit Corsica on 15th December, the local diocese said on its website on Thursday, in the first recorded trip of a pope to the French island in the Mediterranean.
The short visit to the island’s capital city Ajaccio, where Francis is expected to speak at a conference on popular religiosity across the Mediterranean region, will mark his 47th foreign trip since becoming Pope in 2013.
Pope Francis blesses a newly married couple, on the day of the weekly general audience in Saint Peter’s Square at the Vatican, on 20th November, 2024. PICTURE: Reuters/Remo Casilli/File photo
Corsica, noted for its steep, mountainous terrain and as the birthplace of Napoleon, is the fourth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of France’s poorest regions, with government statistics estimating that about 20% of the population lives below the poverty line.
The Vatican did not immediately confirm the local church’s announcement, but the trip is known to have been in preparation for weeks. Francis has made two prior visits to France, travelling to Strasbourg in 2014 to address the European Parliament and the Council of Europe, and to Marseilles in 2023 to attend a meeting of bishops.
But the Pope, who turns 88 on 17th December, has never made a full state visit to France, an historic stronghold for Catholicism that is now widely secular and home to Europe’s largest Muslim and Jewish communities.
French President Emmanuel Macron invited Francis to come to Paris for the 8th December reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral, but the Pope will be leading a ceremony at the Vatican that day to install new Catholic cardinals.
Cardinal Francois-Xavier Bustillo, originally from Spain, has led the Catholic Church in Corsica since 2021. Francis made him a cardinal, the highest rank in the church below pope, in 2023.
Corsica’s population of some 356,000 is estimated by the Vatican as 81.5 per cent Catholic.
Francis has travelled widely around the Mediterranean over his 11-year papacy, visiting Malta, the Greek island of Lesbos and the Italian island of Lampedusa.
