ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE – For the first time in his nearly 12-year papacy, Pope Francis skipped his customary inflight press conference at the end of an overseas voyage, this time a whirlwind daytrip to French Mediterranean island of Corsica.
Speaking to journalists traveling on board his brief, 40-minute flight from Ajaccio to Rome Dec. 15, a tired-looking pope spoke with a raspy voice, thanking them for their work and saying he would skip the traditional inflight press conference due to the brevity of the trip.
However, he made a point of commenting on the number of children he saw during his roughly 10 hours in the Corsican capital of Ajaccio.
“Did you see how many children there were? Think about certain trips: East Timor, where I was happy to see a people that has children,” he said, adding that both in East Timor and in Corsica, “I was happy seeing a country that has children, and this is the future.”
He had made a similar comment during Mass earlier that afternoon, jesting that he had seen many children and not many dogs.
Ironically, while France overall has the highest fertility rate in western Europe, Corsica in recent years has had the lowest rate of the various French regions.
The pope was also presented a non-edible birthday cake by Mexican journalist Valentina Alazraki on behalf of the International Association of Journalists Accredited to the Vatican (Aigav) on the occasion of his 88th birthday Dec. 17.
He thanked the journalists and said, “We’ll do the press conference next time.”
It marked the first time that Pope Francis, who while in general good health suffers from a variety of minor health issues such as the lack of part of one lung, sciatica and knee troubles that often confine him to a wheelchair or the use of a cane, has skipped the traditional inflight press conference, even for short flights.
Last December the pope was forced to skip a planned visit to Dubai for the COP28 United Nations climate summit due to a respiratory infection.
He made the Dec. 15 daytrip to Corsica to attend the closing session of the two-day “Popular Religiosity in the Mediterranean” congress in Ajaccio, where he condemned politicians who use popular piety to promote political agendas and stressed the importance of collaboration between church and state.
He underlined the need to develop “a concept of laïcité that is not static and fixed, but evolving and dynamic, capable of adapting to different and unforeseen situations, and of promoting constant cooperation between civil and ecclesial authorities for the benefit of the whole community, each within the limits of its own competences and areas of activity.”
He also met with local bishops, clergy, religious and seminarians from the region and throughout France and celebrated Mass before having a roughly 45-minute conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Ajaccio airport before flying back to Rome.
Francis’s visit to Corsica marked his third time visiting the traditionally Catholic nation of France, but without making an official state visit, after a 2014 visit to Strasbourg to address the European Parliament and the Council of Europe, and a 2023 trip to Marseille to close the annual “Mediterranean Meetings.”
Francis has yet to visit Paris since his election to the papacy nearly 12 years ago, and he opted out of attending the Dec. 8 inauguration of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, which was renovated after a fire destroyed vast portions of the structure in 2019, creating 21 new cardinals that day instead.
Corsica itself, while still French territory, has been in the throes of a battle for autonomy for decades and the push for greater distance from the French government continues to build.
Macron has also faced significant backlash from French and European bishops and the broader Catholic community after enshrining abortion into the country’s constitution earlier this year, and for an apparent drag parody of Da Vinci’s famed “Last Supper” during the opening ceremony for the Paris summer Olympics.
That parody drew widespread backlash from the international community and from various religious groups, including a condemnation from Pope Francis and from prominent Jewish and Muslim leaders, among others.
During a brief meeting before Francis’s departure from Ajaccio Sunday, Macron thanked the pope for visiting and gave him a book about the renovations of Notre Dame, and he could be seen grasping to hold the pontiff’s hand.
Next year Pope Francis, if his health permits, is expected to visit Turkey for the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. No other potential travel plans have been announced.
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