By Caroline de Sury, OSV News
PARIS (OSV News) — Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, a top contender to lead the French bishops’ conference, delivered a powerful lecture March 22 in Marseille, calling for a “reawakening of hope” in the face of global turmoil.
The cardinal-archbishop of Marseille urged people to resist feelings of helplessness amid rising political extremism and societal divisions.
Known for his close relationship with Pope Francis and allegedly one of the pope’s favorite cardinals, Cardinal Aveline was speaking at the Lycée Lacordaire, a large Catholic high school, as part of a Lenten retreat to which he had invited the faithful of his archdiocese, on the theme “With Jesus, rekindle hope!”
The news of the lecture quickly spread across France due to the timeliness of international matters he addressed. The lecture may also be seen as programmatic for a cardinal who is often discussed as papabile, or a prelate with a good chance of becoming pope in the future.
Born in 1958 in Algeria, a French colony at the time, the future Cardinal Aveline had to leave the North African country as it regained independence from France.
After living in several worker’s hotels in the French capital, he arrived in Marseille with his parents at age 7. The rough migration journey back to France, in which he lost his 11-month-old sister, made him a lifelong advocate for migrants and the poor.
He has remained in Marseille ever since. He finds the city “deeply irritating and passionately endearing,” but one that “knows how to adopt those who arrive and give them a homeland,” according to the French daily Ouest France. In 2019, Pope Francis appointed him archbishop of Marseille and in 2022 granted him a cardinal’s hat.
Known for his friendly attitude, and a jovial manner of speaking, the 66-year-old prelate spoke seriously March 22 about the urgent issues facing the church in the current context.
“In the spring of 2025, the world seems to be caught up in a frenzied rush, which for the past few months, thanks to a reconfiguration of international relations, has been generating fear and panic all over the world,” he said.
“The media space is saturated daily with violence, both verbal and visual. It reveals the atrocity of the damage, the distress of the poorest and the insolence of the powerful in many parts of the world. It is very difficult not to be overwhelmed by worry and anxiety,” the cardinal said.
For Cardinal Aveline, “the most extremist political movements, taking advantage of the malaise of the institutions they have helped to weaken, are constantly stirring up the wind of exclusion and rejection.”
He said, “The thirst for power and personal gain, far from the pursuit of the common good, seems to be the sole agenda of a few irresponsible leaders, more concerned with escaping the justice of their country than serving their people.
“We are in the process of losing sight, without even realizing it, of the two fundamental anthropological principles of the eminent dignity of every human being and the inviolable unity of the whole human race,” he said.
In response to this, Cardinal Aveline called for “work to reawaken hope.”
“We must look at reality as it is, in order to analyze it, to try to understand it and to find together how to act, resist and propose,” he declared. “Spiritual awakening means banishing the demon of ‘what’s the point?’ which blinds and numbs us, preventing us from acting, resisting and proposing.
“Resistance is often the form that faith takes,” Cardinal Aveline added. “Remember Poland, and other countries, where faith took the form of resistance, and where things gradually changed. Let’s not rule out the possibility that the same thing could happen to us. So let’s learn to resist and to make proposals.”
In all circumstances, the cardinal stressed, “let us retain the power of love for every man and every woman, for Christ, the only Savior of the world, has risen for all.”
In this context, for Cardinal Aveline, “the purpose of the church is to serve the loving relationship of God to the world.”
Despite its “weaknesses and burdens and despite its stains and wrinkles, the church is an object of faith that is beyond us, but which needs all of us, baptized members of the same body, called to discern together the calls of the Spirit,” he said.
“In the church’s current mission, one of the important points is to favor interiority. … God has put within us what he requires of us,” he added with his Provençal accent.
“We must not look in all directions, outside ourselves, for what we should be doing. God does not ask creatures to fly if he has not given them wings!”
Cardinal Aveline also spoke of the divisions that can occur within Christian communities. “The ecclesial communities are themselves crossed by all the fault lines that divide society,” he pointed out. “Yet we must learn to be in communion. There is an ecclesial work of discernment to be done to find how to achieve communion despite the reality of these disparities,” he explained.
With regard to relations with other Christian churches, Cardinal Aveline expressed his joy at knowing that in 2025, all of them will celebrate Easter on the same date, due to the chance concordance of the different liturgical calendars.
In January, he met with the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople in Turkey during a pilgrimage that he initiated, with seven bishops and a hundred priests from the province of Marseille, to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed defined by the First Council of Nicaea in 325.
Shortly afterward, he traveled to Egypt and, on Feb. 15, met Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II.
“I suggested to both of them that we reflect and join forces so that we can continue to celebrate Easter together in the other years. What a testimony that would be for the world!”
Meanwhile, Cardinal Aveline has invited all Christian leaders in Marseille to gather on Easter, April 20, in the afternoon, at the Old Port in Marseille.
There, in the historic center of Marseille, the oldest city in France, since its foundation in ancient times, in 600 B.C., “We will proclaim the resurrection of Christ together,” the cardinal exclaimed during his lecture.
Caroline de Sury writes for OSV News from Paris.
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