Pope Leo XIV has been more explicit than ever in his criticism towards anti-immigration policies in Europe, as the pontiff visited the Canary Islands, in a speech at port of ArguineguĂn in Gran Canaria, which in 2020 received nearly 3,000 African refugees were crammed for months, and became known as the "port of shame". "Europe cannot proclaim human dignity and become accustomed to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic being cemeteries without headstones", said the Pope in a moving speech.
"Dear migrants, I want to bow before your dignity. You are people with families and homes left behind, with dreams that no one has the right to disregard", Leo XIV said in an event attended by migrants, workers and authorities, including the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and the President of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, as reported by EFE.
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The Pope's speech comes in a moment where the Spanish society is divided, with far-right political party Vox talking about a "national priority" that would displace humanitarian help to immigrants, and some members of the Church hierarchy in Spain lining up with those far-wing politics. Ironically, the Pope's words align better with the left political parties in Spain, which has intensified tension in the institutions.
But his speech reaches the entire international community and other European leaders who have failed to solve the matter of refugees entering the continent and have not provided them with assistance nor dignity, often letting them die in the sea. "It is not enough to manage arrivals, distribute figures, reinforce borders or lament deaths when they have already occurred. Every boat that arrives brings not only migrants; it brings with it a question: what kind of world have we built if so many of our brothers and sisters have to risk death to seek life?"
This act in Gran Canaria is one of the final of the week-long trip to Spain by Pope Leo XIV, one day after inaugurating the last tower of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona and meeting with victims of sexual abuse in Madrid.