From royal palace to homeless shelter to 600,000 young people in the streets— the Pope’s beginning hours in Spain say everything about his priorities and the Church's presence.
The cannons fired, the cathedral bells of the Almudena rolled across the rooftops, and a cavalry escort brought Pope Leo XIV through the gates of the Royal Palace. It was a reception fit for a head of state — which is, of course, exactly what he is.
The scale visibly struck even veteran papal correspondents. One vaticanista confessed he had never seen a palace quite so vast. A colleague noted that the Swiss Guards and the long corridors of the Vatican felt modest by comparison. Breathless journalists navigating the endless staircases between ceremony rooms were heard to remark — not entirely innocently — that they had come to understand how Queen Letizia stays in such remarkable shape.
King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia welcomed the Pope alongside their daughters, Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofía, marking the first papal visit to Spain in 15 years and the first of Felipe’s reign. Leonor arrived fresh from completing her Basic Parachuting Course as part of her military training — becoming the first Spanish royal ever to earn the distinction — and the warmth between king and pope carried some of that energy. When one said, I wouldn't do that! The other answered, me neither!
In the Salón de Columnas, the guest list told its own story. Former prime ministers from across the spectrum — conservative Aznar and Rajoy, socialist González — shared a notably relaxed room with far-right Vox leader Santiago Abascal. The Pope’s address was calibrated for exactly this company. He had come, he said, to foster “reconciliation and cooperation between the different forces of this Nation,” acknowledging that such language “resonates for some as naive and for others as provocative.” His call to flee identitarian approaches was a quiet but unmistakable appeal for an open Spain.
The afternoon brought a sharper contrast. Caritas runs the CEDIA 24 Horas center for the homeless. There, Leo listened to a Cuban lawyer who had fled her country while pregnant with twins, and a Senegalese migrant who arrived in 2020 at the height of the pandemic. He told those gathered he felt himself in “a great and wonderful family where miracles of love happen.” Cardinal José Cobo Cano, Archbishop of Madrid, had set the tone: “You enter Madrid today through a singular door — small in appearance, but immense in mercy.”
The day ended at Plaza de Lima. By the time the Pope arrived shortly after 8:45 p.m., some 600,000 people — most of them young — lined the avenue and surrounding streets, some watching from apartment balconies above. Cardinal Cobo opened the vigil by presenting the crowd to the Pope as those who “arrive with the thirst of those who seek Christ,” and thanking Leo simply “for helping us raise our gaze.” This is the theme of the trip, taken from John 5.
When Leo stepped onto the stage, the crowd broke into chants of “Esta es la juventud del Papa”— “This is the Pope’s youth.” He appeared visibly moved before he began. The vigil unfolded on a stage arranged like a living room: young people asked questions, the Pope answered directly. His message was spare: “Be human. Men and women of flesh and blood—not mere appearances, but trustworthy faces.” He called them to become “the sparks of a new humanity.” Fireworks went up over the plaza as the night ended.
Two rooms, two registers, one long day. From the Royal Palace to a homeless shelter to half a million people in the streets, Leo traced something that looked less like a papal itinerary and more like a single argument: that the Church exists to build bridges, not to guard its own ground.
Sunday, the feast of Corpus Christi, saw the Pope among 1.2 million faithful crowded on the streets. This feast day is particularly festive all across Spain, not just when the Successor of Peter happens to be in town.
The Holy Father noted, though, that the feast day is more than flower murals and carpets, and long processions with marching bands and military honors. “It is no coincidence that the Church here in Spain has long combined the Solemnity of Corpus Christi with the Day for Charity.”
An Augustinian at home in Spain
For Leo XIV, this visit carries a particular resonance that goes beyond diplomacy. The Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial—Philip II’s sixteenth-century masterpiece in the Sierra de Guadarrama, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the great jewels of Spanish religious culture—has been entrusted to the Augustinian Order since 1885, making it one of the most important landmarks of the pope's own religious family in Spain.
During his years as Prior General of the Augustinians, Leo visited repeatedly, and once chose El Escorial as the seat of an Intermediate Chapter of the Order—a choice that spoke for itself. The monastery’s celebrated Escolanía, a choir of young scholars formed under Augustinian patronage, will sing at the Corpus Christi Mass on June 7; its choirmaster, Father Pedro Alberto Sánchez, recalls that many of the singers had already met the future pope years ago in Rome, when he was still a bishop. “He had the kindness to spend some time with us and take a photograph with the group,” Sánchez told Vatican media.
A night at the Cardinal’s table
The day will end not at the nunciatura—the usual papal billet—but at the Archbishop’s Palace, tucked into the medieval triangle between Puerta Cerrada and the Calle de la Pasa, where Cardinal Cobo will host Leo XIV for a private dinner: an informal gesture, and a rare one on apostolic journeys.
The menu, provided by Madrid restaurant Larry, will be defiantly Spanish—Iberian charcuterie, local cheeses, a selection of national wines. The guest list was kept close, described only as varied and connected to the archdiocese.
