MADRID (SPAIN)
Crux [Denver CO]
June 8, 2026
By Elise Ann Allen
Pope Leo closed his whirlwind stay in the capital city of Spain Monday by sending a message to the local Church to overcome division and work as a community to build a society based on justice and love.
“To build something new, beautiful and lasting, we must be willing to tear down walls. In order to set out on the path again, we need spaces that allow us to catch a glimpse of the horizon,” the pope said June 8, in a visit to Madrid’s cathedral.
After speaking to members of Spanish parliament, addressing the country’s bishops, and meeting with a small group of clerical abuse victims, the pontiff on Monday paid a visit to the capital city’s Cathedral of Almudena, consecrated by Pope John Paul II in 1993 after 90 years of construction.
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An impressive Catholic landmark in a city filled with them, the cathedral is home to a famed statue of the Virgin of Almudena, the origins of which are unclear, but tradition holds that as Spaniards sought to oust the Moors, they stormed the citadel where the statue was housed and which the Moors were defending.
According to traditional accounts, the soldiers, who had no way to gain entry, prayed for a way in, at which point the wall behind the statue collapsed and allowed them to enter and gain victory.
Today the cathedral, which sits across from the Royal Palace of Madrid, stands as a symbol of the popular devotion rooted in Spanish culture and history, as well as a symbol of the church’s relationship with the Spanish crown.
As part of his act of homage to Our Lady, Pope Leo presented the golden rose – a traditional sign of special papal favor given to royalty, military leaders, even governments, as well as shrines and chapels and sanctuaries – laying the gift at the base of the statue.
Leo in his speech noted that it was only thanks to the collapse of a wall that Mary “was reunited with her people.”
This event is a providential one, he said, because “it points to the path that Jesus, through his Most Holy Mother, invites us to follow.”
“Initially, when a wall collapses, it makes a clamor, creating chaos and disorder. However, it also opens up spaces, restores possibilities and fosters renewal,” he said.
He lamented that in society, there are “many walls that do not protect but rather divide, separate and isolate.”
“At times, we prefer the comfort of merely shoring them up and, more often than not, simply ignoring them, because we fear that tearing them down will mean having to face situations that we would rather avoid,” he said.
Our Lady of Almudena, however, offers to Leo’s mind a different perspective. He said she sends the message that “to build something new, beautiful and lasting, we must be willing to tear down walls.”
“In order to set out on the path again, we need spaces that allow us to catch a glimpse of the horizon,” he said, saying this path is based on a relationship with God, who listens to his people and “lovingly accepts all their efforts to do good.”
The pontiff urged Catholics not to falter in their efforts to bear witness to the faith and to God’s love, saying, “in your witness of charity, so you can come together as one family of brothers and sisters; and in your witness of hope, so that you can be sustained in your work in the world.”
He closed his address praying that Catholics in Spain would be “sustained and strengthened in your love for Jesus and for the Church, so that you can form bonds and restore the universal language of communion, fraternal love and harmony.”
Pope Leo then made his way to Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, the home stadium of the Real Madrid soccer team, which – in a remark to this journalist on the papal place en route to Madrid — Leo told Crux Now he prefers over their main rival, FC Barcelona.
There, he met with the diocesan community of Madrid, urging them to put synodality into practice, seeking to build a better society together in respect of plurality and difference, and urging them to greater kindness.
After listening to various testimonies, the pope spoke to a crowd of 80,000, reflecting on the church’s capacity for “building together” and of “transforming diversity into a resource and of making listening and dialogue the common ground upon which to cultivate justice and fraternity.”
“Within this shared task, Christians discover their unique role of guiding actions toward God so that, in his light, pluralism does not dissipate into disorder, but instead, through the practice of synodality, it becomes the space in which humanity rediscovers its solid foundations and its final end,” he said.
In a diverse and secularized society where tensions are often acutely felt, he stressed the need to “relearn the spiritual art of kindness, without which proclaiming the Gospel risks becoming impersonal and ineffective repetition, leaving room for frustration and mistrust.”
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Leo told Catholics present that as a diocesan Church, they are capable of offering a witness to the Gospel “that will harness the best forces of a humanity that is bombarded with images and words, yet is hungry for justice and thirsty for truth.”
Despite a rapid growth in secularism in recent years, he told local Catholics to draw encouragement by a recent trend of a rise in the number of those returning to the faith or who “come to know it for the first time in adulthood.”
“Be ready to welcome new beginnings not as an exception, but as the rule of the mission,” he said.
Leo closed urging Catholics to “be, for everyone, like an open Bible: may the word of God be found in your faces and in your lives. Love, indeed, is the language that makes everyone feel at home.”