There Is a Rumor That the Pope Will Go to the Reopening of Notre-Dame

The Aleteia website picked up the information and quotes the journalist Caroline Pigozzi, who is currently accompanying Pope Francis on his Asian trip. She writes: “His Holiness might come to the inauguration of the restored Notre-Dame,” claiming that this information had been entrusted to her by an “influential Vatican prelate.”

The Sovereign Pontiff’s program would be as follows: “Arrival in France on the morning of December 7 to attend the symbolic handover of the Paris Cathedral by the State to its assignee, the Catholic Church.”

Francis “would then preside over the reopening Mass on December 8 alongside Archbishop Laurent Ulrich of Paris,” before leaving for Rome, the journalist continues.

She took advantage of her presence on the papal plane to directly ask the Pope the question during the flight to Jakarta. Francis reportedly simply replied: “We’re looking into it,” with a small smile.

So there are plenty of hypotheses among Vaticanists, who are comparing past information to put forward a positive or negative response. The President of the French Republic and the Archbishop of Paris did invite the Pope for this very special ceremony, but Archbishop Ulrich responded last February to Le Parisien that Francis would probably not come.

Others argue that the Vatican did not give a negative response, and that “with the Pope, anything is possible,” recalls Aleteia, citing a senior official of the Holy See.