On the fourth day of his visit to Spain, Pope Leo flew to Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, where he joined 40,000 young people in the city’s Olympic stadium for a festive and prayerful gathering. 

The atmosphere in this city of 1.75 million people was totally different from what he had experienced in Madrid. There were no crowds lining the streets to greet him as he drove from the airport to the cathedral for a prayer service, no festive decoration of the city, almost no Vatican flags to be seen and no posters to acknowledge his presence or welcome him. Instead, the city’s teachers were on strike and decided to conduct a protest during his visit, even wearing paper miters to draw the media’s attention to a lack of funding for education and low pay.

Barcelona is said to be a far more secularized city than Madrid, and at least on this first day here, it shows. A rally is even expected this evening with the slogan, “For secularism and against the public privileges of Pope Leo XIV’s visit.”

Much the same happened when Benedict XVI visited in November 2010. When he consecrated the Sagrada Familia and raised it to the status of a basilica, many left the city to avoid the disruption in traffic and movement caused by his presence.

Apart from the teachers’ strike, Pope Leo was warmly welcomed when he arrived at the airport shortly after noon by officials from the Generalitat, the Catalan regional government, and Cardinal Juan José Omella, the city’s archbishop, whom the pope knows well and at whose residence he will stay during his sojourn here.

As a sign of the importance Spain attaches to this visit, the Iberia Airbus 320 that brought Leo from Madrid to Barcelona was escorted much of the way by a fighter jet from the Spanish Air Force, just as it had been on the journey from Rome. Leo waved to the jet’s pilot from the cockpit of the plane, where the captain, Pablo Martínez Núñez, had invited him to sit to get a better view of the route. It was not the only surprise for Leo: When he boarded the plane, he met a flight attendant, Cristina Villegas, who knew Robert Prevost through her close relationship with the Order of St. Augustine and even visited him when he was bishop of Chiclayo in Peru.

From the airport, the pope drove straight to the beautiful Gothic Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia, which traces its origins to the sixth century, for the recitation of the Sixth Hour prayer. There, hundreds of people, many of them young, cheered him with great enthusiasm from behind the barriers the police had erected, shouting, “You can see it, you can feel it, the pope is here!”

In recent days, there has been some controversy regarding the pope’s use of Catalan; the booklet for tomorrow’s Mass distributed by the Vatican indicates that, although several parts will be in Catalan, the blessing of the tower of Jesus Christ at the Sagrada Familia will be in Spanish. But during his homily in the cathedral today, the polyglot pope surprised everyone by reading a quarter of the text in Catalan, to the delight of the local people.

“Dear brothers and sisters, with great joy I begin my visit by celebrating the Sixth Hour in this cathedral with all of you,” he began. He then switched to Spanish, but alternated three paragraphs in Catalan, the language in which he also concluded the homily.

He then recalled the “great church tradition” of Barcelona and, for the fourth time since this visit to Spain began—which will also take him to the Canary Islands this Thursday—he emphasized the need for unity in a troubled world.

“Barcelona is called ‘Cap i Casal de Catalunya,’ which gives this community—all of you, the people of Barcelona and Catalonia—a special vocation and a responsibility to become, with God’s help, builders of unity,” he emphasized. “In a world torn apart by wars and divisions, in a society that is increasingly fragmented and individualistic, wish to be ‘martyrs’—that is, witnesses and prophets of unity, of welcome, of harmony and of peace, even at the cost of sacrifice and renunciation.”

He told them: “This is what the crucified One teaches us; this is what the Apostle Paul and the examples of the saints invite us to do. This is what we wish to do together, in accordance with Jesus’ prayer to the Father during the Last Supper.”

After lunch at the archbishop’s residence in the historic center of the city, Leo had a private meeting with the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa i Roca, and later met a group of Augustinians.

That evening, he drove to the Olympic stadium for a prayer vigil with 40,000 young people. Before entering the stadium, he blessed 21 ambulances and other vehicles that Lucía Caram, O.P., an Argentine nun living in Spain, is now taking to Ukraine.

When Leo entered the stadium in the popemobile, the vast crowd erupted with cheers and applause. They treated him to a festive performance that included building a human tower and singing. 

He addressed them twice, first giving a reflection on Nicodemus and the search for faith in moments of darkness, and then he engaged in a dialogue with three young people. One young man described growing up under pressure “to be productive, succeed and maintain our image” but then discovered an emptiness in life until his life “took a turn and he was baptized.” He asked the pope: How can one discover one’s true vocation in the midst of “this strong current” in society? 

In response, the pope decried “the idolatry of profit and performance” and “the drive to always produce and win, as well as the cult of self-image.” These, he said, “are nothing more than anesthetics designed to numb our conscience and mold it to a certain vision of society.”

Leo told him: “Restlessness is a gift that God himself gives. We are made for the infinite, and that is why every finite achievement…always propels us forward.” He told him that “the Holy Spirit works in all situations of life and history, even the most difficult ones.” He urged him “to cultivate moments of silence,” pause to read a passage of the Gospel daily and “speak with God.”

A second young person spoke of experiencing depression, “a silent illness that affects many people—both young and old—and brings with it darkness, isolation and immeasurable pain,” she said. At one point, she had attempted suicide, but “God gave me a second chance,” the young woman said. “Where can we see God when the darkness is absolute, and we cannot take it anymore?”

Leo responded: “You have risen and continued your journey, and this is a remarkable miracle that we see in many Gospel passages. Through contact with Jesus, even those who feel lost regain confidence in life; healed of their illness, they can rise to live again.”

“It is important to recognize how mental health is increasingly threatened in the context of societies that consider themselves advanced,” the pope said. “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. For this reason, we need a health care system that prioritizes this invisible and widespread malaise, which also affects young people.”

“There are moments of darkness and suffering that our society silences…. And in these moments, we may instinctively think that God has abandoned us as well,” Leo said. “However, the cross of Jesus tells us that God does not abandon us, that he is at our side.”

He concluded: “We must open ourselves to someone who can help us…who can accompany us with discretion without rushing to explain that pain, who can take us by the hand and lead us out of that cry.”

The third person who spoke told Leo that when she was a child, her father tried to kill her mother and ended up in prison, that her mother took to drugs and that at the age of 10, she was taken to a juvenile detention center. She was eventually baptized and later, during a retreat, “experienced the love of God.” She asked the pope: How can she forgive her father?

In a long answer, Leo said, “If violence exists, if selfishness prevails, if even love among family members turns into hatred, we must question the dynamics of our society, the culture of individualism and the temptation of violence—but not God.” He added, “We must learn to view forgiveness—that powerful remedy for evil that heals our inner wounds—as part of a process and a journey.”  

He told her: “We must continually ask the Lord—perhaps for our entire lives—to expand the space of love within us, precisely where we have been wounded, that he can help us reconcile with ourselves and with that part of our past that has been marked by suffering, so that he may slowly transform resentment into mercy and compassion. This is a long journey and a process that requires great patience.”