A fascinating article in the Guardian on Friday, the day before Pope Leo arrived here in Spain, painted a picture of some alignment between the Pontiff and the policies of PSOE Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez.
As well as the protocol meetings with King Felipe, Queen Letizia and the PM, plus the inauguration of the Sagrada Familia basilica in Barcelona, the Pope will spend time with homeless people, migrants and the professionals and volunteers who work with them. In the Canary Islands, for example, he will visit the port of Arguineguín and meet people who risked their lives taking the perilous Atlantic migration route from Africa to Europe.
This determination to highlight the plight of migrants and asylum seekers will not go unnoticed in Spain or beyond. As the Guardian article says, “The Pope’s commitment to the basic human rights of migrants has led him to criticise the Trump administration, over what he has termed its ‘extremely disrespectful’ treatment of foreigners in the US”.
But it brings him into alignment with the Sánchez-led government, which has defended the economic and social benefits of migration, and regularised the status of significant numbers of undocumented migrants and asylum seekers. Indeed, following a meeting with the Pope at the Vatican last month, Prime Minister Sánchez praised the Pontiff for being a “moral compass in the fight against injustice’” and said they shared “a humanist vision of migration”.
Needless to say, this message has not gone down well with the far right Vox party, who last year floated the idea of deporting some 8 million people of foreign origin. More recently Vox’s leader, Santiago Abascal, was outraged when the Bishop of the Canaries diocese dared to suggest that looking after migrants was a basic Christian, and human, duty, and he hit back by claiming the bishops were out of touch. He later partly retracted, saying that his party respected the bishops’ conference as “a very important alliance within Spanish society”.
Standing back, the Guardian reflected that “Spain’s international profile is arguably higher than ever – thanks largely to Sánchez’s pro-immigration stance, his repeated criticisms of Israel’s war in Gaza and his stinging rebukes of Trump’s attacks on Iran. Leo’s presence will boost that profile further”. Apparently a full-page advert in last Tuesday’s Guardian, taken out by Spain’s tourist board, showed a picture of the Sagrada Familia with the caption: “We build peace. Good things are happening in Spain.”
Read the full Guardian article here.