François-Xavier Bustillo was born Francisco Javier Bustillo Rípodas on 23 November 1968 in Pamplona, Spain, the eldest of four children of a career soldier. Barely ten, he chose the minor seminary at Baztán in Navarre; at seventeen he joined the Conventual Franciscans in Padua, Italy, studying at the Sant'Antonio Dottore Theological Institute and later taking a licentiate in theology at Toulouse (1997). He made solemn profession on 20 September 1992 and was ordained a priest on 10 September 1994.
That same year he helped refound the Saint Bonaventure friary in Narbonne, France, serving as guardian there until 2018, as parish priest, and as provincial Custos of France and Belgium (2006–2018). From 2018 he was guardian of the Saint-Maximilien Kolbe convent at Lourdes and diocesan delegate for the shrine and for the protection of minors. Pope Francis appointed him Bishop of Ajaccio, Corsica, on 11 May 2021; he was consecrated on 13 June 2021. He became a naturalised French citizen in 2006.
His 2021 book on the priesthood in crisis made his name: in April 2022 Pope Francis gave its Italian edition, ‘Witnesses, Not Officials,’ to every priest at the Chrism Mass in St Peter's. Francis created him cardinal on 30 September 2023 — the first serving Bishop of Ajaccio to receive the red hat — with the title of Santa Maria Immacolata di Lourdes a Boccea. He hosted Pope Francis in Ajaccio on 15 December 2024, was made a knight of the Legion of Honour in 2024, and voted in the 2025 conclave.
Consequential Quotes
We often see the prestige of a Cardinal, but it is above all a responsibility of communion.
Differences are beautiful and should not lead to division.
Innocent people have been desecrated. We cannot preach morality if we ourselves have done evil.
I am confident! The church is not dead! She can provide abundant values of life and joy in a society bathed in vagueness.
Major Works & Initiatives
La fraternità pasquale. Raccontare la vita comunitaria (in Memoria e profezia, EMP)
An early Italian work on telling the story of community life in the Franciscan tradition.
La vocation du prêtre face aux crises: La fidélité créatrice (Éditions Nouvelle Cité)
His best-known book: the priest's vocation amid crisis, answered with creative fidelity rather than nostalgia or management.
Testimoni, non funzionari. Il sacerdote dentro il cambiamento d'epoca (Libreria Editrice Vaticana)
The Italian edition (‘Witnesses, Not Officials’) that Pope Francis distributed to priests at the 2022 Chrism Mass in St Peter's Basilica.
Le coeur ne se divise pas (Fayard), with Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, preface by Pope Francis
A book-length conversation on unity — ‘the heart is not divided’ — with the Substitute of the Secretariat of State.
Controversies
The Thévenet affair and Golias's criticism
Contested: in September 2023 the French Catholic magazine Golias described the charismatic activities of Franciscan Brother Daniel-Marie Thévenet as ‘misguided mysticism’ bordering on charlatanism, and questioned Bustillo's association with him, both men having roots in the same Conventual Franciscan circles. Bustillo, who had once been Thévenet's superior, replied that there had been no complaints against Thévenet in that period, that he no longer had authority over him, and that he could only urge him to be prudent. Golias judged that response far short of what the behaviour deserved; Bustillo's position, steelmanned, is that a former superior cannot discipline a friar now outside his jurisdiction, and that public denunciation without complaints on file would itself be unjust.
Caution on ordaining women deacons
Contested: in an April 2024 France 3 interview, Bustillo warned that giving women diaconal or priestly ordination risks introducing ‘a logic of power and not of authority,’ so that ordained ministry comes to be seen as power rather than service — while noting women's paramount importance in transmitting the faith. Supporters of women's ordination heard this as closing a door the Church says is under study; Bustillo's framing, steelmanned, is a Franciscan one — the question, for him, is not women's worth, which he affirms, but whether ordination-as-status is the right remedy for clericalism.