He was expected, hoped. The pope was ultimately, at the great disappointment of many French faithful and some policies, not to the great reopening ceremony of Notre-Dame de Paris, on December 7, 2024. The event, to which he had been explicitly invited by Emmanuel Macron, had however been thought of as a great moment of communion between politicians, ecclesiastics, believers and not believers, all simply French, eager to celebrate the heritage of a nation “Elder girl of the Church”.
Pope Francis had however come to France a week later. In Corsica this time, for a trip that no one in the Vatican has proven to be able to explain the reason. This choice of the sovereign pontiff to avoid the continent at the heart of the news to go to a quieter island of beauty illustrates perfectly the funny relationship he had with France from the start of his pontificate. A distance tinged with distrust of a country sometimes perceived as arrogant in the Holy See, and of which it did not understand all the springs. But also an attachment for personalities, places or figures of Catholicism.
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Source: Lemonde