One of his objectives is to point the positions of the Pope (and the Church) on immigration, and more specifically to support regularizations.
High-level ecclesiastical sources, to whom Confidencial Digital has had access, have revealed that the Government has asked the Holy See to send in advance the speeches that the pontiff will deliver during his stay in Spanish lands.
Other sources add that in the Executive there is “a certain nervousness” about what the Roman Pontiff can say those days.
The Holy See has completely opposed the demand of the Spanish Government and, according to these sources, has decided not to previously deliver the Pope’s interventions.
Political expectations
According to El País, the government has placed many political expectations in the trip of Leo XIV, because it seeks to rely on the position of the Pope to defend its extraordinary regularization and its policy in favor of immigration.
León XIV will deliver a speech in Congress that will undoubtedly touch on immigration and other sensitive issues, and that is why the Executive is confident that the trip will help many Spaniards change their mind about their rejection of the latest political decisions.
The newspaper adds that for the Government the existing pro-immigration discourse in the Church is decisive. Sanchez is confident that regularization will be a success and, as a result, it can even become an electoral asset.
According to the ecclesiastical sources consulted by Confidencial Digital, the Pope will take care that his words, both in Congress and those he pronounces in the Canary Islands, are not used politically in a way that seems a support to the government’s policies on immigration.
Another of those derived from the interest of the Government for the ‘political’ facet of the visit is that it refuses that, in the program of those days, a meeting of the Pope with the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, is included.
Capitalize on the journey
At the end of May, Pedro Sánchez will travel to Rome, where he will hold an interview with Leo XIV.
Qualified institutional sources, consulted by ECD, highlight the anomalousness of a trip of that style when it will be only ten days before the Holy Father himself arrives in Spain on an official visit.
These sources attribute the initiative to the intention, on the part of Pedro Sánchez, to transmit that it is he who has invited the Pope to visit Spain, when the reality is that he was invited by King Felipe VI, and twice.
The first, on the occasion of his assistance to the proclamation as Roman Pontiff. And he reiterated it in the private audience to the kings on March 20, on the occasion of the inauguration of Philip VI as Protocanónigo of the Basilica of Santa Maria la Mayor.
At the same time, not ‘mix’
The government’s intentions to ‘appropriate’ the visit of Leo XIV have, however, coincided with a decision that has caused discomfort in the organizers of the visit: the refusal to use, as requested, the Cuatro Vientos airfield for the vigil with the young people.
In 2003, during the visit of John Paul II to Madrid, there was a massive meeting with young people in which an attendance of 600,000 people was estimated.
Eight years later, in 2011, during the World Youth Day presided over by Benedict XVI, there took place the great vigil of August 20 and the final Mass of August 21, with estimated attendance of between 1.5 and 2 million people.
The Confidencial Digitalecclesiastical sources to which Confidencial Digital has had access explain that the ‘reason’ they have sent them about that refusal has to do with the fact that the government does not want to ‘link’ to a ‘Catholic’ issue.
Other sources claim that it was ruled out due to the difficulties that would be to reach the aerodrome due to the works that are being carried out on the A-5.
Consequently, the vigil will take place in Plaza Lima, where there is not a quarter of those who are estimated to want to attend: around one and a half million young people.