Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline: A bridge builder between the Church and Europe

Jean-Marc Aveline has a direct line to the Pope. The chairman of the French Bishops' Conference says this without vanity. He worked for two years under the leadership of Bishop Robert Francis Prevost in the Dicastery for Bishops, which is responsible for appointments and synods. When his friend Robert Francis became pope, he had to rethink things, says Aveline. However, the French cardinal was not completely uninvolved in Leo's election. After all, he was a member of the conclave. The newspaper La Croix reported that Aveline herself was on the shortlist for the Holy See at the time. Aveline says nothing about it.

The jovial churchman was born in 1958 in what was then French Algeria. Marseille has been his home for many years. Aveline is characterized by a Mediterranean warmth and a singing Marseille accent. The sixty-seven-year-old already had a close relationship with Pope Francis. Aveline has been Archbishop of Marseille since 2019 and cardinal since 2022. He convinced Francis to visit the French port city in 2023.

Visit to Metz as a return to Europe

He also arranged Leo XIV's four-day papal visit to France. He readily explains how his wish was initially turned down in the Vatican. But the cardinal didn't let up and, in his own words, besieged the secretary responsible for the Pope's calendar until he came up with a suggested date. But there were only four months left for planning, including two summer months. Aveline believes that the visit has come at exactly the right time. France longs for spiritual support in a time marked by war, inflation and a loss of values.

At the same time, Aveline hopes that her visit to Metz this Monday will bring back a return to the work of European unification. The cardinal regrets that Chancellor Friedrich Merz is not coming to Lorraine, because at the beginning of Europe there is Franco-German reconciliation. Unfortunately, the invitations came too late.

He enthusiastically tells how he visited the new chairman of the German Bishops' Conference in Hildesheim on May 8th. Such inaugural visits are common among politicians, but he said to himself that the church had a role to play in the face of the attacks on Europe. He felt a lot of agreement with Bishop Heiner Wilmer.

But when writing the joint communiqué, Aveline intervened with an additional request. First of all, there was a holy mass where the two chairmen commemorated the day of the liberation of France from National Socialist rule. At Aveline's request, the liberation of Germany and Europe on May 8, 1945 is now also mentioned.