Two days before he celebrates his 88th birthday, Pope Francis will make a one-day visit to the Mediterranean island of Corsica, one of the 18 regions of France. He will do so on Dec. 15 to close an international conference on popular religious traditions organized by the Diocese of Ajaccio.
Before becoming pope, Francis had supported popular religiosity and ensured that it was given strong recognition in the final Aparecida document of 2007 as a sign of faith and a launchpad for evangelization. As archbishop of Buenos Aires, he participated in various expressions of popular religiosity, especially in the city’s shantytowns. He endorsed popular religiosity in his programmatic document, “Evangelii Gaudium” (“The Joy of the Gospel”), as “a true expression of the spontaneous missionary activity of the people of God.”
Popular religiosity has played a significant role in the history of Corsica and the development of the island’s culture, marked by processions, pilgrimages, religious feasts and widespread devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, to whom the Corsican national anthem is dedicated.
His visit to Corsica is his 47th apostolic journey abroad and the first-ever papal visit to the island, which is French territory today but is expected to gain a greater degree of autonomy in the near future. Since becoming pope, Francis has visited 65 countries.
The Vatican said Pope Francis was invited to the island by the civil and church authorities to close the conference in the capital city. Sources in Rome also say that François-Xavier Bustillo, a Spanish-born French prelate and member of the Conventual Franciscan Friars, who has been the city’s bishop since 2021, was the one who convinced the Jesuit pope to visit Corsica. Francis read Bishop Bustillo’s book, Witnesses, Not Officials, and gave a copy of it to the priests at the chrism Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Holy Thursday in 2022 and gave the bishop the red hat the following year.
On the eve of the visit, Cardinal Bustillo told Vatican Media that the congress, “instead of viewing some popular traditions as mere folklore,” sees them rather “as an opportunity to evangelize through the popular traditions passed down to us by our ancestors.” He hailed the pope’s visit as “a beautiful Christmas gift,” which the Corsicans receive “not as a privilege, but as a responsibility to honor our memory and to inspire our future.”
Corsica is the most mountainous and fourth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. For five centuries it belonged to Genoa, Italy, but was ceded to France in 1769. It has a population of 355,528, of whom 81 percent are Catholic, according to the Vatican’s Year Book, distributed over 434 parishes. Napoleon Bonaparte was born in the capital city, Ajaccio, in 1769, which today has a population of 76,500.
The island is one of the poorest regions of France, with 19 percent of its population living below the poverty level. Its economy is dependent on agriculture, craftsmanship and, more recently, tourism. In the second half of the 20th century, a separatist movement started on the island that has its own cultural and linguistic identity, distinct from those of France. That movement has brought greater autonomy to the island, with the hope of more to come.
Pope Francis’ visit to Ajaccio will be his third visit to France, though he has yet to visit Paris. He went to Strasbourg on a one-day visit on Nov. 25, 2014, to address the European Parliament and the Council of Europe. He told the parliament, “We cannot allow the Mediterranean [Sea] to be converted into a vast cemetery.” He next traveled to Marseille on Sept. 22-23, 2023, for the closure of the annual Mediterranean Meetings, which review the challenges facing the cities and churches in the Mediterranean basin, especially related to migration. He told them then that “we are at a crossroads” and are faced with a choice of “either fraternity or indifference.”
Christianity came to Corsica in the first or second century, but only to the coastal areas, according to the Vatican media’s booklet for the trip. By the sixth century, however, the island’s inhabitants were still mostly pagan. Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) sent monks to evangelize and baptize the islanders. In 1133, Pope Innocent II linked the island’s six dioceses to Genoa and Pisa and made the archbishop of Pisa the primate of the island. During the French Revolution, however, all the dioceses were suppressed, starting in 1790. Pope Pius VII restored Ajaccio as the only diocese, but made it a suffragan of Aix in France. Pope John Paul II reorganized the French diocese and made Ajaccio part of the ecclesiastical province of Marseilles, and today Cardinal Bustillo is its bishop.
His visit will last only 10 hours, during which he will give two talks and a homily. He arrives at 9 a.m. at the international airport and will go immediately to the Palace of Congresses and Exhibitions for the closure of the conference on popular religiosity that brings together theologians and religious leaders from Spain, nearby Sardinia, Italy and France.
Afterward, he will travel to the 17th-century cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption of Ajaccio where he will meet the bishops, 83 priests, 29 women and men religious, 18 permanent deacons and 230 catechists. The island’s church runs 10 kindergarten and primary schools, two secondary schools and one higher education institute.
He will celebrate Mass in the square known as Place d’Austerlitz, in which stands a statue of Napoleon. Since not all of the islanders will be able to attend, screens will be erected in the towns and villages to permit people to follow the celebration.
Before departing from Corsica, the pope will have a private meeting at the airport with President Emmanuel Macron of France. The two leaders have met several times, and the president tried, unsuccessfully, to get Francis to come to Paris to attend the re-opening of Notre Dame. Instead, the pope opted to come to this city on the periphery of France.
On the hour-long return flight to Rome, Pope Francis is expected to give a brief press conference, answering questions from some 70 members of the Vatican press corps, including America’s Vatican correspondent, who are accompanying him on this journey.
