Pope Leo XIV has appealed for migrants to be treated with respect and solidarity during a speech to Spanish lawmakers in which he also urged nations to respect international law.
This was the first-ever address by a pontiff to the Spanish congress and it was part of a weeklong visit to the country by the pope.
He appealed to countries to provide a “co-ordinated, solidarity-based and efficient response” to the challenge of migration.
“When the institutional response is intimate, fair and co-ordinated, borders stop being places of abandonment and they can become spaces of protection that are responsible for human dignity,” he said, in a speech that lasted about half an hour.
The Socialist-led Spanish government is in the process of legalising the status of at least half a million migrants. However, the issue has become politically divisive in Spain and that measure has been criticised by the opposition. The far-right Vox party has clashed with some bishops who have expressed support for the migrant amnesty.
Later this week, the pope is due to visit the Canary Islands, where he is expected to meet some of the thousands of migrants who make the dangerous journey by boat from Africa to the archipelago.
More than 3,000 people died in 2025 trying to reach the Canary Islands, off the western coast of Africa, often in makeshift dinghies, according to rights group Caminando Fronteras.
In his speech, the pope also called for “diplomatic bravery” to promote international peace.
“True security comes from justice and international law,” he said.
The pontiff has previously criticised military action by the United States and Israel in the Middle East, drawing a fierce backlash from US president Donald Trump.
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The pope also expressed concern at the rearmament process under way among European nations – although Spain has refused to comply with Trump’s demands for Nato members to increase defence spending to 5 per cent of gross domestic product.
Leo’s speech, which was delivered in Spanish and was received with a seven-minute standing ovation by lawmakers, was a rare papal address to a national legislature.
However, lawmakers of some left-wing parties did not attend. Also absent was José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the former socialist prime minister, who has been named as a suspect in a corruption investigation.
After his appearance in parliament and before a meeting with victims of church sexual abuse, the pope addressed the abuse issue as he spoke to Spanish bishops.
“Every person harmed must be able to find sincere understanding, welcome, protection and real routes to healing,” he told them.
The Spanish church has agreed with the government on a reparation scheme for survivors of abuse whose cases are too old to be handled by the judiciary.
However, some victims’ groups protested at not being allowed to meet the pope.
“For us this would have been an act of poetic justice,” said Ciro Molina, of the ANIR survivors’ group in the Canary Islands. “But [the church] is not interested, it wants to demonstrate its power.”
Leo also offered some of his most in-depth remarks yet addressing the balance in the relationship between church and state. He urged protection of religious freedom, saying that faith “cannot be relegated to silence as though it were irrelevant to public life”.
The pope likewise defended the privacy of the Catholic seal of confession, which obliges a priest not to reveal any information given to him by penitents.
Several countries, including France, have debated whether to compel priests to report sexual abuse disclosed in confessions, following scandals that have shaken the church internationally.
Protecting the seal, Leo said, preserves “a sacred space of inner freedom, where the believer can open his or her soul before God”. – Additional reporting: Reuters
