Top photo credit: Pope Leo XIV smiles as he greets visitors during his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican June 17, 2026. CNS photo/Vatican Media
By Josephine Peterson, Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY CNS – Reflecting on his weeklong trip to Spain, Pope Leo XIV said one of his clearest impressions came from the Canary Islands, where migration revealed both the challenges facing Europe and what he described as a Christian path toward a “civilization of love.”
Speaking at his weekly general audience June 17, the Pope said the archipelago’s role as a gateway for thousands of migrants from Africa offered a “comprehensive insight” into a complex issue that also challenges Christians to reread the Gospel in today’s world.
He said migration is “complex and requires organic and coordinated action plans,” but it also challenges Christians to “reread the Gospel in today’s world, exchanging with each other the gifts of our respective cultures, and in particular the results produced in them by the fruitfulness of Christ’s message.”
“This path is not easy; it requires goodwill and God’s help, but it is the path that leads to the civilization of love,” he said in St. Peter’s Square.
The Pope repeatedly returned to migration during the final days of his trip, delivering some of the strongest language of his pontificate on the issue.
“A human conscience, and even more so a Christian conscience, cannot remain indifferent in the face of these graveyards of the sea, to the victims of shipwrecks and the lack of aid,” he said while meeting organizations helping integrate migrants in Tenerife June 12.
Standing at the port of Arguineguín on Gran Canaria the previous day, he warned against indifference to migrant deaths.
“We cannot grow accustomed to counting the dead,” he said. “Human dignity has no passport and does not lose its value when crossing a border.”
Despite joking with journalists on the flight to Spain that more people might be interested in the Bad Bunny concerts taking place in Madrid the same week, the Pope encountered massive crowds throughout the country. More than 1.2 million people attended a Mass at Madrid’s Plaza de Cibeles, and another 500,000 gathered for a youth prayer vigil at Plaza de Lima.
“I was able to observe with joy how much people of every age and situation were looking forward to the Pope’s visit: everywhere I found multitudes who welcomed me with great warmth. This fact was not to be taken for granted, and is worthy of reflection,” he said.
Throughout the trip, Pope Leo said the service of the papacy is to promote communion, dialogue and unity through diversity, themes he emphasized in speeches across Spain.
Reflecting on the enthusiastic reception he received, he said, “I believe it reveals a widespread need to find unity on a true and deep foundation, one that is neither ideological nor based on partial interests.” What people are searching for, he said, can ultimately be found only in Christ, whose Gospel responds to humanity’s search for truth and thirst for justice.
Among the major moments of the trip, the Pope highlighted his visit to Barcelona’s Basilica of the Sagrada Família, where he celebrated Mass and blessed the newly completed Tower of Jesus Christ, which made the basilica the tallest Church in the world.
“This encounter of ancient and modern Catholic tradition and contemporary culture enabled me to perceive first-hand the very character of Europe, its inestimable wealth, as a living reality, not a thing of the past,” he told the crowd in St. Peter’s Square.
“It is a heritage to be safeguarded with care, so that it may be invested in today’s global world with its momentous challenges: peace, integral ecology, equitable and sustainable development, and respect for human dignity.”
The Pope also reflected during his weekly audience on his encounters with young people, abuse survivors and prisoners, saying modern society often leaves people searching for hope and meaning.
“It is important to recognize how mental health is increasingly threatened in the context of societies that consider themselves advanced,” he said June 9 at Barcelona’s Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium. “This is a sign that there is something deeply wrong with a certain notion of progress that subjects people to pressures, expectations and tensions that compromise healthy balances.”
While in Spain, he also rejected attempts to “spiritualize pain, superficially attributing it to ‘God’s will’ or to some mysterious plan of his, because this risks minimizing that suffering, silencing it and hurting people.”
“God does not want suffering. He carries it with us and invites us to trust in him with perseverance,” he said, because “with God, life is always reborn.”
The motto of the journey was “Lift up your eyes,” drawn from the Gospel account in which Jesus teaches his disciples to look beyond their circumstance and recognize the desire for life, truth and fullness in others. Pope Leo said he witnessed that longing throughout Spain.
“Today I would like to share this invitation with you: let us lift up our eyes! Let us learn from Jesus to look at our neighbor, at people, at the world ‘through God’s eyes,’ that is, with love, respect and compassion,” he said June 17.
Catholic journalism is needed now more than ever. Please consider supporting this work by signing up for a SUBSCRIPTION (click HERE) or making a DONATION to The Monitor (click HERE). Thank you for your contribution.