Pope Leo spoke in Catalan, a language key to the region’s identity, as he arrived in Barcelona yesterday for the second stop of a week-long tour of Spain in which he has warned that conflicts have pushed the world into a profound crisis.
As in Madrid, where he opened the first visit of a Pope to Spain in 15 years, Leo was greeted by large crowds as he arrived at Barcelona’s 14th century cathedral to preside over a midday prayer. Thousands pressed against barriers outside the church in the sunshine, waving flags and screaming “Long live the Pope!”
“Estimats germans i germanes” (Dear brothers and sisters), Leo opened his homily in Catalan, evoking the region’s distinct cultural and political character.
Regional officials had been hoping the Pope would speak in the language, which is widely used in schools, churches and local politics.
Catalan, whose use in public was restricted during General Francisco Franco’s dictatorship, which ended in 1975, is a central part of identity in the region, which tried to secede from Spain in 2017.
The independence drive has subsided since and the region is now governed by a non-separatist leader.
Leo, who has adopted a more forceful tone against the direction of global leadership, urged respect for diversity in his parliamentary address and said the “moral greatness” of any country depended on how it treated migrants and other vulnerable populations.
Leo later met the leader of the northeastern region of Catalonia and held a prayer vigil with young people at the Lluis Companys Olympic Stadium.
The centrepiece of Leo’s visit to Barcelona will be today, when the Pope will visit an abbey in nearby Montserrat and inaugurate the newest tower of the Sagrada Familia, the modernist basilica that has become the world’s tallest church.
The visit to the basilica is also celebrating the legacy of its architect, Antoni Gaudí, whose designs were mocked in his lifetime but are now being praised. A fervent Catholic who died on June 10, 1926, he is on the path to Catholic sainthood.
Leo’s visit to Spain will culminate on Friday in the Canary Islands where he will meet some 1,000 migrants who have crossed dangerous Atlantic waters on small dinghies to reach Europe.
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