Corsica is just 180 miles from Rome as the crow flies, but no reigning pope has set foot on the rugged Mediterranean island best known as Napoleon’s birthplace.
But that could be about to change, according to local media. On Oct. 30, the daily newspaper Corse-Matin reported that Pope Francis could make a weekend trip to the island in December.
The Dec. 14-15 visit, it said, would coincide with a conference on Mediterranean popular piety organized by the Diocese of Ajaccio, which covers the whole island, with its population of 355,000 people, roughly 90% of whom are Catholic.
The mooted visit would be just before Francis’ 88th birthday on Dec. 17, the launch of the 2025 Jubilee Year, and the Vatican’s Christmas celebrations. So why would the pope consider this addition to his frantic schedule?
Wait, where’s Corsica?
Corsica — nicknamed “the isle of beauty” due to its scenic landscape — is located immediately north of the Italian island of Sardinia, the homeland of Pillar reader Cardinal Angelo Becciu. It’s the Mediterranean’s fourth-largest island after Sicily, Sardinia, and Cyprus.
France annexed Corsica in 1769, the year that Napoleon was born in the island’s capital, Ajaccio (pronounced “uh-zhak-see-ow”). Today, Corsica is one of France’s 18 administrative regions, but has a strong nationalist movement seeking greater autonomy from the French mainland.
Corsica has deep Catholic roots and long-standing ties to Rome. The Ajaccio diocese was established in the third century. Napoleon’s great-uncle Lucien was the Archdeacon of Ajaccio and the future Emperor of the French was baptized in Ajaccio Cathedral.
Angelo Roncalli visited Corsica in 1952, when he was the apostolic nuncio to France. Six years later, he became Pope John XXIII. His successor, Paul VI, inaugurated the era of globetrotting popes. But the island has yet to welcome a Successor of Peter — unlike its neighbor Sardinia, which received papal visits in 1970, 1985, 2008, and 2013.
Why Corsica?
Corsica has several elements likely to attract Pope Francis.
First, the island arguably fits what Francis described in 2023 as his policy of “visiting small European countries” — if you set aside that it’s part of France, that is.
While it’s geographically close to Europe’s center, Corsica may qualify as what the pope calls an “existential periphery.” Around 20% of the population lives below the poverty line, making it one of France’s poorest regions.
Second, the island has a Catholic leader who seems very much on Pope Francis’ wavelength: Cardinal François-Xavier Bustillo.
Bustillo, a Conventual Franciscan, was born in Pamplona, Spain. Francis named him Bishop of Ajaccio in 2021. A year later, the pope gave copies of Bustillo’s book “Witnesses, not officials” to priests attending the Chrism Mass at St. Peter’s.
In September 2023, Bustillo published the book “The heart is not divided” with the Secretariat of State’s Substitute (Sostituto) Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra. It contained a preface by Pope Francis.
That same month, Le Figaro’s Jean-Marie Guénois identified Bustillo as a “rising star of the Church,” describing the Franco-Spaniard as “charismatic and highly organized,” and “a pastor at heart.”
The third factor that might draw Francis to Corsica is the Mediterranean. Since his election in 2013, he has traveled all over the region, from the island of Lampedusa to Lesvos.
In recent years, he’s invested a significant papal capital in an initiative known as the Mediterranean Meetings, which brings together bishops from dioceses surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, which links Europe and Africa.
Francis attended a Mediterranean Meetings event in Marseilles, France, in September 2023. His host was Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, the local archbishop and a trusted papal confidant. Ajaccio is a suffragan see of Marseilles, so a papal visit to Corsica might also be a nod of gratitude to Aveline.
As the historian Blandine Chélini-Pont put it in the magazine Le Pèlerin: ‘‘The Mediterranean is a rallying utopia for the pope. His big idea is to rebuild a peaceful Mediterranean civilization. To achieve this, he relies on a network of theologians and personalities who defend the same idea, including the bishop of Corsica, François Bustillo, whom he has made a cardinal, and Jean-Marc Aveline, the archbishop of Marseille.”
Will it happen?
How likely is a papal visit to Corsica in December? The French Catholic daily La Croix said Oct. 30 it had confirmed the trip is under consideration. But it stressed that neither the Vatican nor the French government had made any comment.
