What will we remember from the third meeting between Pope Francis and Emmanuel Macron on Monday, October 24? The first, in June 2018, was marked by the record time of the exchange between the two men, 57 minutes, concluded with a frank hug and a joke from the President who had caused a lot of ink to flow about the Breton origins of his Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, Jean-Yves Le Drian.
Breton like the one who had played the role of interpreter during the exchange between the Pope and the President, Father Jean Landousies, then responsible for the French-speaking section of the Secretariat of State and friend of the French minister. “The Bretons are the French mafia”, had launched Emmanuel Macron to the pope.
During the second, in November 2021, after the pandemic and the controversies over the bans on celebrating Mass in public to avoid gatherings, the President had created the surprise by addressing the pope, who had addressed him in return. An initiative which had not only aroused positive comments in Vatican circles, where the French are sometimes suspected of arrogance. This time the bets are off.
International tensions on the menu
The context is very different. Because the time is no longer really for jokes but for war. And it is against a background of escalation in Ukraine that the two men will talk to each other, while international tensions reach a critical point. It will also probably be a question of recurring and unavoidable subjects such as environmental issues, Europe and North/South inequalities. But the annoying subject, the end of life, with the debate which will open in France, will he invite himself in the office of the apostolic palace?
This is what the Archbishop of Rennes and head of the “bioethics” working group of the bishops of France, Mgr Pierre d’Ornellas, wishes in particular, on pilgrimage with a diocesan group in Rome, who was able to greet the Pope briefly at the outcome of the general audience of October 19.
“I would dream of Pope Francis and President Emmanuel Macron taking the time to discuss this subject. I dream of the Pope inviting the President to stay in a palliative care unit, so that he can listen to the care team for a long time, and hold the hand of people at the end of life. That he discovers the riches of this humanity, which is much more than a start-up, but a treasure of wisdom”he explains in an interview with Life. And cite as an example the intellectual journey of Paul Ricœurmentor of Emmanuel Macron in his youth, who, after several years of reflection, had ended up positioning himself against legislation on euthanasia.
Receiving a delegation of public actors from the diocese of Cambrai on October 21, the pope has already made a plea in favor of palliative care: “Practitioners, by nature, have a vocation to heal and relieve, since they cannot always heal, but we cannot ask practitioners to kill their patients, which is a bit like the program of the culture of throwing away: throw away, don’t use, use and throw away, throw away. If we kill with justifications, we will end up killing more and more”did he declare.
But it may not be this meeting with Pope Francis that will get the most media attention. On the one hand, because it is the third of its kind, and few elements usually filter visits by heads of state, which are held behind closed doors. On the other hand, because Emmanuel Macron will begin his Roman journey with a speech at the annual gathering of the Sant’Egidio movement, entitled this year “The cry for peace”, and which brings together personalities from the political and religious world.
Participants in the rally
Emmanuel Macron will hold a place of honor, delivering his speech just after the founder of the community, the historian Andrea Riccardi. His speech will be followed by those of Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Niger President Mohamed Bazoum, “key country for the fight against jihadism and the transit of migrants, in an interesting moment of Africa-Europe dialogue”can we read on the site of the movement, but also great voices from the religious world such as Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, figure of Sant’Egidio, Archbishop of Bologna and President of the Conference of Bishops of Italy, the Chief Rabbi of France, Haïm Korsia, the secretary of the Islamic World League, Al-Issa, and young witnesses of the war in Ukraine. Pope Francis must also participate in this meeting, but the day after, for the closing. It is therefore this speaking out that will set the tone of the trip.
This initiative, very European in spirit, is part of the presidential agenda between the first meeting of the European Political Community which was held in Prague, and ahead of the Paris Peace Forum in November. If Emmanuel Macron goes there, it is in response to the invitation of Sant’Egidio, a movement with which he has established an ongoing relationship, fueled by meetings around the question of humanitarian corridors, Africa and Europe. It is also because of a strong intellectual link with the founder of the community, the historian Andrea Riccardi, laureate like him – and like Pope Francis! – the Charlemagne Prize, which recognizes commitment to European unification.
In The Church is burningthe book he has just published by Editions du Cerf, Andrea Riccardi devotes very interesting pages to the French president, whose speech by the Bernardins of 2018 he analyzes. He was particularly marked by these words of President Macron: “If Catholics wanted to serve and make France grow, if they agreed to die, it was not only in the name of humanist ideals. Not only in the name of a secularized Judeo-Christian morality. It is also because they carried their faith in God and their religious practice. »
Andrea Riccardi sees a “unprecedented attitude” : “Macron’s outstretched hand – the expression was used by Maurice Thorez, secretary of the French Communist Party, in the direction of Catholics in 1936 – is significant for our time. A head of state needs spiritual resources, in contrast to the 20th century, when the civil power perceived the Catholic presence as invading and threatening. It was then a question of limiting the influence of the Church by anticlerical and secular laws like that of 1905 in France, or by the laws which, in Italy, annexed the immovable heritage of the Church and reduced the religious congregations drastically; and these are just examples. Twentieth-century Europe feared the “power” of the Church over populations, over families, over women, over young people. Today, on the contrary, we fear his absence. It is when gaps open that we understand the value of lost presences. Concerns relate to the human and spiritual ecology of Europe. This is not the problem of Christians alone, but a more general problem. The burning Notre-Dame cathedral evokes not only the crisis of the Church, but also, on closer inspection, that of society as a whole. »
The historian argues that after this speech by the Bernardines, “the Elysée was waiting for a reaction” and he declares to have been aware, “in certain circles of the presidency, of a slight disappointment with the response of the Church”. Disappointment, not because of a negative response, but “because the Church did not want to engage in an uncertain voice, somewhat removed from its usual mission”at a time when Macron’s presidency included “a part of fragility and unpopularity”and where the Church itself, “with its 98 dioceses, was more concerned with its survival than attracted by a project with uncertain outlines”.
Asked by LifeAndrea Riccardi specifies that if the speech is important, it is not “because he wanted to create an axis between the Church and the Republic”but “because it offered a new climate of collaboration and a new cultural climate”. A context in which it is a question of rethinking the relationship of Catholics, in a minority, to political power.
By inviting Emmanuel Macron, it would therefore seem that Andrea Riccardi took the initiative to seize this outstretched hand, in a climate of international emergency. For his part, as we know from his friendship with the Protestant philosopher Paul Ricœur, Emmanuel Macron is sensitive to the great Christian thinkers, a category of which Andrea Riccardi is one of the essential representatives in the contemporary world. What will the President retain from these summit dialogues? That’s the whole question.
Emmanuel Macron, Pope Francis, Riccardi and Catholic intellectuals