Pope Francis said on Sunday he planned to visit Marseille in 2023 for a meeting of bishops on the Mediterranean. “Next year I may go to Marseilles for the Meeting of the Mediterranean,” he confided in an interview with the Spanish daily ABC, specifying that it would not be an official visit to France.
“I went to Strasbourg, but not for France, except to visit the European institutions” in 2014, he recalled.
Date not yet set
Marseille could host in 2023 on a date not yet fixed a meeting of the bishops of the Mediterranean, the last edition of which was held in February 2022 in Florence but which the pope had to give up.
The pope’s visit to Marseille was discussed between the sovereign pontiff and Jean-Marc Aveline, archbishop of Marseille who is particularly committed to interreligious dialogue and created cardinal at the end of August by François.