Pope Francis has announced that he will not attend the December reopening of Notre Dame de Paris, which was damaged by a massive fire on April 15, 2019.
"I'm not going to Paris," the pope told reporters on the plane that brought him back from a tour of Southeast Asia and Oceania.
A year ago, French President Emmanuel Macron said he intended to invite the pope to the reopening of the cathedral on December 7.
The Pope's statement comes a few days after media reports suggested that the head of the Catholic Church might travel to attend the first mass in the restored cathedral on December 8.
Five years after the fire, the restoration is nearing completion. The eight bells of the north tower were lifted on Thursday, and the statue and organ, which is being tuned, are expected to be reinstalled in November.
The Pope did not give a reason for his refusal to attend the reopening of the cathedral, knowing that his schedule is still full, despite the fact that he is approaching his 88th birthday and health problems that limit his movement and sometimes force him to slow down his activities. After his trip from Indonesia to Singapore, via Papua New Guinea and East Timor, he will travel to Luxembourg and Belgium on September 26, before the Synod of Bishops on the Future of the Church in October.
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