From the archbishopric, which seems to be suspended on the heights of Marseille, the view of the sea is breathtaking. The heat is overwhelming on this Tuesday in September. In a shirt, without a Roman collar, Jean-Marc Aveline leans out of the window whose blinds are drawn down to ensure some coolness. “She’s a little gray today, but she’s so beautiful!” » A dazzling light veiled by a few clouds gave the Mediterranean a blue-gray hue that day, different from the pure azure that the Archbishop of Marseille usually knows so well.
It is this sea, the crossroads of Africa, Europe and the Middle East, and the tragic theater of migrant shipwrecks, that the prelate convinced Pope Francis to come and greet on September 22 and 23 in the city Phocaean. “I will go to Marseille, not to France”, has also said the Pope on several occasions, emphasizing his concern for “the Mediterranean problem”.
It is here, after Bari and Florence, that the third session of the Mediterranean Meetings is held. An event that brings together bishops and young people from all shores of Mare nostrum and whose work the pontiff must close on Saturday at the Pharo Palace, in the presence of the Head of State, Emmanuel Macron.
“Natural, human and accessible”
“Marseille interested the Pope, because it is a peripheral city, it is one of the last if not the last true cosmopolitan city on the perimeter Mediterranean with so much mixing, communities that live well together. We must also encourage it,” analyzes the one who was made cardinal in 2022.
The archbishopric of Marseille was thus put in the spotlight rather than those of Paris or Milan, formerly considered traditional cardinal seats. “Francis chooses people in whom he trusts and who are in places symbolic of the role and presence of the Church in the world,” analyzes Jean-Marc Aveline.
It is also indisputably the personality of the prelate which endears him to the pope, according to several witnesses in Rome and France. ” Simple “, according to some, “natural, human and accessible”, for the others. “A bishop who clearly stands out in his personality and his contact with the rest of the episcopate”, confides a priest. “I was overwhelmed by his words, his kindness, his closeness, he has an extraordinary understanding of others,” does not hesitate to support Father Alexis Leproux, former president of the Collège des Bernardins, today vicar in charge of relations with the Mediterranean within the diocese of Marseille.
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