Spanish PM hails Leo as ‘moral compass’ ahead of visit
Leo is due to become the first pope to address the Spanish legislature, but 60 groups represented by the Europa Laica or Secular Europe association have protested against the plan.
Pedro Sánchez, the self-declared atheist prime minister of Spain, said Pope Leo XIV is “a moral compass” in the fight against injustice after meeting him in the Vatican.
After a 45-minute audience with the Pope on 27 May ahead of his visit to Spain on 6-12 June, Sánchez said the Pope was always “on the side of the weakest”. He said Leo represents “common sense in the face of injustice and the law of the jungle”.
Sánchez, who belongs to the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers’ party) and defined himself as “an atheist plain and simple” in 2014, named several areas where his views coincided with Pope Leo’s, ranging from war to immigration.
“The Pope [by taking] such clear stances, is a deeply needed inspiration in the world,” he said, after a meeting which was followed by others with the Holy See’s Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and with Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Secretary for Relations with States.
“His words drive us to defend human dignity, protect the most vulnerable and work for hope, for a world that abandons the path to war and returns to peace, what is quite definitely a better world,” said Sánchez, the first Spanish prime minister to dispense with a crucifix and Bible when sworn into office in June 2018.
He will meet the Pope alongside King Felipe VI of Spain and his consort Queen Letizia in Barajas Airport Madrid when he arrives in Spain on 6 June.
Leo is due to become the first pope to address Las Cortes, both houses of the Spanish legislature, on 8 June, but 60 groups represented by the Europa Laica or Secular Europe association have protested against the plan.
The association sent a memorandum to Spanish parliamentary groups urging them to “weigh up and reconsider whether their deputies should attend this special session” and calling for the repeal of Spain’s accords with the Holy See.
José Antonio Naz, the president of Secular Europe, said he chose to hold a press conference about this measure in the Spanish parliament “because it is the place of a crime against the non-confessional status of the state”.
“It is unacceptable that parliament, for the first time in its history, should invite and welcome a religious leader as if he was simply another legislator, all the more so when he is the leader of the Catholic Church which led the ideology of the dictatorship of Franco, and which continues to align itself ideologically with the most right-wing of parties,” he said.
Naz also criticised Pedro Sánchez’s decision to attend the papal Mass at the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. “With his behaviour, as prime minister, he will fracture the non-confessional nature of the State,” he said.
During an audience in December, Pope Leo warned Spain’s bishops of the risk of subjecting faith to ideologies. Some Spanish outlets reported months later that Leo had named the ultra-right wing party Vox in his remark, though the Spanish bishops’ conference officially denied this.
On 11 June, Leo will become the first pope since John Paul II in 1982 to visit the Canary Islands. After his morning arrival in Gran Canaria, Leo will meet migrants and aid organisations. A floral tribute will be thrown onto the sea to remember those who died there. He will preside and preach at an evening Mass at the Estadio de Gran Canaria.
The following day he will fly to Tenerife. There he will visit a centre for migrants and give an address to a migrant integration organisation before the closing Mass of the papal visit just after noon in the Port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
The Spanish government has defined the papal visit as “an event of special public interest”, a category usually applied to the celebration of anniversaries of historical import or to promote large-scale cultural, sporting and social events. This designation implies that the sponsors of the papal visit may receive fiscal deductions.
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