An influential French cardinal aligned Pope Francis’s stances was on Wednesday elected France’s prime bishop, because the nation’s department of the Catholic Church reels from youngster intercourse abuse revelations.
The Archbishop of Marseille, Jean-Marc Aveline, 66, was elected head of the Bishops’ Convention of France (CEF), for a time period of three years.
The smiling, affable Aveline has advocated for dialogue between religions and cultures, and the defence of migrants, each tenets of Pope Francis’s papacy.
He takes over one of many world’s most influential our bodies of bishops at a important second, as France’s Catholic Church is rocked by claims of sexual violence and is below stress to clarify its silence surrounding a charity icon, Abbe Pierre.
Thought-about the frontrunner, Aveline was elected within the first spherical by the bishops gathered within the southwestern city of Lourdes, shortly acquiring the required two-thirds majority of the votes.
On July 1, Aveline will take over from Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, the Archbishop of Reims, who’s finishing his six-year tenure.
Born in Algeria, Aveline has spent most of his life within the southern port metropolis of Marseille, a historic gateway for immigrants, the place he’s an emblematic determine.
He was appointed auxiliary bishop of Marseille in 2013 and elevated to cardinal in 2022.
He has additionally been talked about among the many favourites to change into the subsequent pope.
In 2023, Pope Francis visited Marseille on a two-day journey the place he led tens of hundreds of worshippers packed right into a stadium for a mass.
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