Warm, welcoming, French cardinal works with migrants, Mediterranean

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Good-natured, affable and dedicated to dialogue, French Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline of Marseille coordinates a churchwide network in the Mediterranean region, a mission he received from Pope Francis.

Inspired by REPAM, the Pan-Amazonian Church Network of nine countries covering Earth's "green lung," the Mediterranean ecclesial conference is likewise meant to link the 22 African, Asian and European countries bordering the blue sea. While the people, cultures, philosophies and religions are diverse, they are united by similar challenges.

The Mediterranean is "a region where dramatic scenarios play out: wars, violations of freedom, corruption" and massive migration, for which specific support networks have been created, the cardinal told reporters at a news briefing in Rome during the synod on synodality in October in 2024.

"We must understand how the church can contribute to efforts for justice and peace in this region," he said, underlining a proposal he had made to Pope Francis for an extraordinary synod dedicated to the Mediterranean sometime in the future.

His ties to bishops all around the Mediterranean basin, his experience with dialogue, his ministry in a multicultural and multireligious city and his sunny disposition give him an influential role in the conclave that will elect a successor to Pope Francis.

Born to French parents in Algeria when it was a French colony, Cardinal Aveline, then 4 years old, and his family fled from the North African nation when it won its independence after a nearly eight-year-long revolution.

This experience of forced migration and growing up in the French port city of Marseille, home to many immigrants, helped shape his work of welcoming migrants and seeing "otherness" as part of forging one's identity.

"Because God has entered into dialogue with humanity, the church's mission is also to enter into dialogue," he said in Rome in May 2024 at the presentation of a book he wrote on the theology of mission.

Catholicity is a way of "living the happy minority" by contributing where one can to society and one's neighbor, he said, according to Vatican News.

The 66-year-old cardinal studied at the Catholic University of Paris where he earned a doctorate in theology in 2000, and he earned a degree in philosophy at the Sorbonne. Since becoming a priest in 1984, he has spent his entire ministry in the same French port city of Marseille where he grew up. He was named auxiliary bishop in 2013, archbishop in 2019 and then cardinal in 2022.

In a show of confidence in his unifying and leadership abilities, he was elected by his brother bishops in early April to be president of the Catholic bishops’ conference of France, which is strongly focused on improving safeguarding in the church.

The cardinal has worked extensively in formation, vocations, higher education and interreligious dialogue, founded an institute for the study of the theology of religions and led the Catholic Institute of the Mediterranean.

His lifelong presence in Marseille has given him great "moral authority in the archdiocese" where he is much loved, according to a profile piece by the French Catholic newspaper, La Croix, in 2023. "He is described as simple, accessible and warm in all circumstances," as well as popular, prudent and always seeking unity.

He shares many of the same concerns as Pope Francis did, especially regarding the plight of migrants, the need to guide and inspire young people, the risk poverty and exclusion pose in contributing to extremism, and the danger of populism.

According to La Croix, he has discreetly sent his priests or young Catholics from the merchant navy to meet with the crew of the Aquarius, a search and rescue ship jointly operated by SOS Méditerranée and Doctors Without Borders to save refugees and migrants. "It completely transformed them," he told the French outlet.

La Croix reported that in 2022 when the pope limited celebrations of the Mass according to the rite used before the Second Vatican Council, the cardinal immediately reassured traditionalist Catholics, even going to the city's St. Charles Parish to celebrate Mass according to the 1962 Roman Missal.

The cardinal works closely with the city's Muslims, who make up at least 35% of the population. He was a consultor to the then-Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue from 2008 to 2012 and has headed the French bishops' council for interreligious relations since 2017.

He is a member of the Vatican dicasteries for Bishops and for Interreligious Dialogue. Members of the synod on synodality elected him to the Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod, the committee that oversees the implementation of the most recent synod and prepares the next assembly.