2023-09-23 08:00:00
The Pope is not coming to France, he is coming to Marseille: the Vatican communication has repeated it over and over again, to the point of upsetting the French who do not have the pleasure of living in the Marseille city. We can clearly see the objective, to show that Pope Francis is there to participate in the Mediterranean Meetings, therefore to discuss the issues of this entire region: migrants, poverty, conflicts, ecology… He is not coming to visit Catholic France, and that is is another human reality that he wishes to highlight through his presence in the Old Port.
Some people shrug their shoulders and see it as a somewhat artificial fad. We can also take the Pope seriously, take him at his word. Francis has accustomed us to going towards what he calls the “peripheries”, that is to say the points of fracture, of poverty, of misery. And if one thing is certain, it is that Marseille is indeed in the France of the “peripheries”, geographically, because on the coast, but also because affected by more difficult, more complex realities than other cities.
So, if the Pope does not come to France, can France go to the Pope, via Marseille? In any case, this welcoming city, with incredible social diversity, often difficult neighborhoods, victims of trafficking but also benefiting from the dynamism of the port, a city at the forefront for welcoming migrants but also tourists, is also France.
From this point of view, the pope’s coming to Marseille is indeed an issue for all of French Catholicism. The latter often brings back the image of a religion for the wealthy classes, of elderly people, classic, a religion of the past. In Marseille, the Church is popular, it is very attached to the figure of Mary (“the Good Mother”), very colorful too, with still a presence in the neighborhoods and a great sociological and ethnic variety. The parishes, even if not very full, are dynamic and creative. Catholicism still remains anchored in local culture: you only need to spend Christmas in the Old Port to see this. The Church in Marseille is undoubtedly less endowed than its Parisian counterpart in human, intellectual and financial resources. It is fragile, diverse. Like our society, with its flaws and its riches. But above all, it is a Church turned outward, reflecting its geographical location and its history. It is enough to list the themes that the bishops of the Mediterranean Meetings must address: migration, work, environment, development of the South, water sharing, women… We are not talking about “shop”, but about the world. Or rather of a Church in the world.
“The Church must stand on the fault lines of humanity, at the bedside of the suffering members of the one human family”said another Mediterranean, Pierre Claverie, former bishop of Oran, assassinated in 1996. We could go further. What if the Catholicism of Marseille, far from being an exception, was the one found more or less throughout the country? Even if it rarely occupies the front pages of newspapers or the headlines on television, this is what a good part of the faithful in the territory experience, quietly and discreetly: diverse, welcoming, open, engaged in associations and concerned by the society in which they are and by its fractures. A Catholicism that takes on the face of our country. Pope Francis is coming to France. And he will encounter the Church of France, in all its diversity.
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