According to the Diocese of Marseilles, these meetings will be “a session of testimonies and exchanges on the challenges of the Mediterranean today (great poverty, migrants, religious plurality, environment, etc.), the human, spiritual, cultural and historical resources available to respond to them, and the contribution which the Churches, anxious to serve the unity of the human race in this particular region, are invited to make to these responses.”
The Supreme Pontiff will meet the participants at a plenary closing meeting of the Assembly of Bishops and the Youth Session. He will go to Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde for a time of prayer, announced the Archdiocese of Marseilles. Finally, he will celebrate a Mass “open to the public” at the velodrome stadium.
“We are aware that the Pope is coming to the Mediterranean, and we are grateful to him for having agreed to take the time to celebrate a Mass for the people of Marseilles and the French,” said Bishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, President of the French Episcopal Conference.
The Holy Father does not want to make this visit to Marseilles a state visit. In 2014, he went to Strasbourg to visit the European institutions, not France, in accordance with his wish not to travel to any of the major European countries so as to focus on the smaller ones. And, as he himself indicated last February, he may fly directly from Marseille to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia.
Pope Francis will visit Marseilles on September 23, 2023 for the Mediterranean Meetings. The event will bring together 60 bishops and as many young people from 29 countries in the Mediterranean region from September 17-24.