A visit to Marseille for the sovereign pontiff. THE Pope Francis will visit Marseille September 22 and 23, the Vatican announced on Saturday July 29. The pope will arrive on Friday, September 22 in the middle of the afternoon and will be welcomed at Marseille airport by Emmanuel Macron. He will then lead a prayer in the basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde before a moment of religious meditation near the Memorial dedicated to migrants who disappeared at sea.
When the trip was announced in March, the pope’s program provided for only one day of the presence of the sovereign pontiff, Saturday September 23. This second day will be devoted to a private meeting with people in economic precariousness, to an interview with Emmanuel Macron and will end with a great mass in the Vélodrome stadium, in the heart of the second city of France.
A first since 2008
The Argentine Pope will go to Marseilles within the framework of the Mediterranean Meetings which will welcome about sixty representatives of Churches from the five shores of the Mediterranean (North Africa, Balkans, Latin Europe, Black Sea and Middle East) as well as about sixty young people from these countries, from 18 to 24 September. This visit by the pope to France will be a first since that of his predecessor Benedict XVI in 2008. Pope Francis certainly visited Strasbourg in 2014, but it was during a visit to the European institutions.