Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has recently championed opposition in Europe to the war in Iran, generating tensions with American President Donald Trump, or to the operations carried out by Israel in Gaza. The pontiff, born in the United States, was himself violently criticized by Donald Trump for his anti-war positions.
Leo stood up and applauded at the end of the Pope’s intervention.
The seven-day papal state visit is also expected to focus on social justice and will include a first-of-its-kind speech to the Spanish Parliament on Monday, as well as a visit to the Canary Islands, where he will meet migrants and the organizations that help them.
Speaking to journalists on the plane before landing in the Spanish capital, Leon acknowledged that sexual abuse within the Catholic Church remained “an open wound”, ahead of a planned meeting during his stay in Spain with victims.
The Pope reconnects with Spain to defend immigration and social justice
Concurrencé par Bad Bunny
King Felipe VI, who came to welcome him at Madrid-Barajas airport with Queen Letizia and the Socialist Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, welcomed the “clarity” and “firmness” of the Pope in the face of sexual assault in the Church, deeming them “essential” for “the victims, for the Church and for society in general” during his welcoming speech at the royal palace.
More than 200,000 minors may have suffered sexual assault at the hands of Catholic clergy in Spain since 1940, according to a 2023 People’s Defender report.
The government of Pedro Sánchez and the Spanish Church signed an agreement at the end of March to compensate victims of sexual assaults committed by religious figures, after years of reluctance and opacity from the ecclesiastical hierarchy.
After a visit to a social center in the capital, Leo XIV’s first day in Spain will end with a prayer vigil near Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu stadium, where 400,000 young people are expected.
“They realize that there is a void, and a lack of meaning, and perhaps my visit has contributed to awakening something even more, which they do not even know very well how to define”, estimated Leo XIV in his plane, questioned by journalists about a possible increased interest of young people in the Catholic Church.
“If you ask them if they want to see Bad Bunny or the Pope, I think many will choose Bad Bunny. But I think there will also be a few here to see the Pope. And that means something, you know,” he said with a smile, referring to the Puerto Rican superstar, currently in the middle of a series of 10 concerts in the Spanish capital.
With Pope Leo XIV, the choice of a complete and peaceful profile
Tribute to migrants
On Sunday, Leo XIV will celebrate a highly anticipated mass in the heart of Madrid, in Cibeles Square, which a million faithful are expected to attend.
The Pope will celebrate a mass in Barcelona in the Sagrada Familia, a century to the day after the death of its architect, Antoni GaudÃ, made “venerable” last year by the Vatican, a preliminary step to his beatification. Leo
The 70-year-old pope, very sensitive to this subject like his predecessor Francis, will meet migrants there on Thursday and Friday, as well as the organizations that help them, while thousands of them have died trying to reach Europe (1,172 in 2025 according to the International Organization for Migration).
An exception in Europe, Pedro Sánchez recently launched a vast plan for the regularization of undocumented immigrants, which should lead to the regularization of half a million people and has earned him virulent criticism from the Popular Party (right) and Vox, the far-right party which has become the third political force in the country.
It has been 14 years since a pope visited Spain, one of the traditional bastions of Catholicism in Europe where religious practice is experiencing a rapid decline.
