TURNS 88 ON TUESDAY
As is now regular, Francis, who turns 88 on Tuesday, left his aircraft on arrival in Corsica through an elevator and used a wheelchair whereas greeting officers on the tarmac.
Throughout a quick journey in an open-air popemobile from the airport, the pope waved at crowds on the road and appeared on good type, although he nonetheless has a small bruise on his chin, the results of what the Vatican described as a minor fall in his bed room final week.
Corsica, famed for its steep, mountainous terrain and because the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte, is the fourth largest island within the Mediterranean. It’s one in every of France’s poorest areas, the place about 20 per cent of the inhabitants lives beneath the poverty line, in line with authorities figures.
The Vatican estimates that about 81 per cent of Corsica’s inhabitants of 356,000 is Catholic. There are 83 monks on the island and a few 30 Catholic nuns, it says.
Francis, initially from Argentina and the primary pope from the Americas, has travelled broadly across the Mediterranean since turning into pontiff in 2013, visiting Malta, the Greek island of Lesbos, and the Italian island of Lampedusa.
