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One-day visit of Pope Francis French the island of corsica on sunday, two days before its 88th birthday, will put a double focus on Mediterraneanhighlighting local traditions of folk piety on the one hand and migrant deaths and wars on the other.
The visit to Corsica’s capital Ajaccio, birthplace of Napoleon, will be one of the shortest of his papacy outside Italy, with just around nine hours on the ground, including a 40-minute visit with the French president Emmanuel Macron.
It is the first papal visit to the island, which was ceded by Genoa to France in 1768 and which is closer to the Italian mainland than to France.
Pope Francesco, the Pope’s name in Corsican, will address more than 400 participants at the Conference on Popular Religiosity in the Mediterranean, organized by the Bishop of Ajaccio, Cardinal Francois-Xavier Bustillo.
The pope’s remarks will include reflections on local religious traditions, particularly strongly held in Corsica, including the cult of the Virgin Mary, known locally as Madonuccia, which protected the island from the plague in 1656 when it was still under Genoese rule.
“The Mediterranean is the background of this trip, surrounded by crisis and conflict situations,” which is expected in the Pope’s address, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said. The Pope has often referred to the tragedy of migration, which he said has turned the Mediterranean into “the biggest graveyard in Europe”.
After addressing the conference, he will travel to the 17th-century Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta to meet with the clergy, stopping along the way at a statue of the Madonna. Francis will celebrate Mass in the Place d’Austerlitz park, where Napoleon is said to have played as a child. About 7,000 worshipers are expected. He will meet privately with Macron at the airport before taking the 50-minute flight back to Rome.
The pope stressed that he did not travel to Paris earlier this month because of the hype surrounding the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral after a devastating fire in 2019. A visit to Corsica seems to be much more in line with Francis’ priorities than the reopening of the great cathedral, with an emphasis on the “church of the periphery”.
It is Francis’ third trip to France, each time avoiding Paris and the protocols that a state visit entails. He visited the port of Marseille in 2023, on an overnight visit to participate in the annual summit of Mediterranean bishops, and in 2014 he went to Strasbourg to address the European Parliament and the Council of Europe.
Corsica is home to more than 340,000 people and has been part of France since 1768. But the island has also experienced pro-independence violence and has an influential nationalist movement, with Macron proposing to grant it limited autonomy last year.
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Associated Press religion reporting is supported through AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from the Lilly Endowment Inc. AP is solely responsible for this content.