Cardinal-elect Bustillo: A special link with the Pope for faithful of Ajaccio

By Xavier Sartre and Francesca Merlo

"I was not at all prepared for this news."

Cardinal-elect François Bustillo, the Bishop of Ajaccio on the French island of Corsica, was taken aback when he received the news by phone about his creation as a Cardinal, which Pope Francis revealed at midday on Sunday. "At first, I even thought someone might be playing a joke on me," he says.

The Cardinal-elect, a Franciscan Franco-Spaniard, has been Bishop of Ajaccio for two years. Having received a call to inform him of his recent election as Cardinal in Pope Francis' upcoming consistory on 30 September, he tells Vatican News' Xavier Sarte that he feels the full weight of the responsibility that now falls on him.

He admits that, for the moment, he does not really know what becoming a Cardinal will mean in concrete terms, but he already knows that this responsibility is synonymous with "fidelity and closeness to the Holy Father."

The Cardinal-elect notes that one of the important things that being a Cardinal will involve is his link, as Bishop of Corsica, "with a specific people, a diocese".

"I must try to create a link, with great simplicity and balance, between Rome and what the Pope will ask of me, and the responsibility that I currently have here in Corsica, directly with the people of Ajaccio and its diocese," he says.

This is the first time in history that a bishop from Ajaccio has been created a Cardinal. To explain the Holy Father's decision, the Franciscan refers to the Pope's "freedom".

"We're not forcing anyone; we're not applying to be a Cardinal," he points out.

However, he noted, the Holy Father sometimes chooses "bishops from small dioceses" and, he adds, "that's my case".