‘All of Us Are Migrants’ — Pope Leo XIV Closes Spain Trip at the Doorstep of Africa
At the Las Raíces migrant center in Tenerife, the pope went off-script to address newcomers in French and English — then told human traffickers they would answer before God.
Thank you for reading! Letters from Leo is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our mission, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Pope Leo XIV landed in Tenerife on Friday morning for the final hours of his weeklong apostolic journey to Spain.
His first stop was the Las Raíces center in San Cristóbal de La Laguna, one of the main migrant reception facilities in the Canary Islands, where more than 54,000 people have been welcomed since 2021.
The pope sat with them and listened to their testimonies. Then he went off-script, switching from Spanish to French and English so the migrants — many from Senegal, Gambia, and Nigeria — could hear him directly in their own languages.
“We are all migrants and pilgrims to our heavenly homeland,” he told them. “Let us help each other to make this journey a more humane place for all.”
The crowd applauded.
From there, Pope Leo moved to the Plaza del Cristo de La Laguna, where he met with local organizations working on migrant integration and heard testimonies from four people whose lives intersected with the migration crisis on these islands.
Khalid Allad, a 24-year-old Moroccan, told the pope he had attempted the Atlantic crossing twice. Twenty people died on the first attempt.
Training with the Don Bosco foundation eventually led to a job at a Salesian school in Tenerife, and Allad said he now goes to work happy each morning.
Mbacke, a Senegalese man speaking for the El Buen Samaritano foundation, recalled being told, “You are worth it. You can.” He also warned that many young migrants face the street the day they turn 18.
After the testimonies, Pope Leo addressed the traffickers.
“Stop. Repent,” he said. Money wrested from the vulnerability of the poor, he warned, would bring neither peace, nor honor, nor a future — and those who profit from the trade in human beings would answer before divine justice. He called on them to free those they held in bondage and to return what they had taken while there was still time.
Leo spoke of two shipwrecks at the center of the crisis. The first happens at sea, in the Atlantic waters between West Africa and the Canary Islands, where the International Organization of Migration has recorded some 6,600 deaths since it began keeping record in 2014 and where the Spanish advocacy group Walking Borders estimates more than 25,000 dead or missing since 2020.
The second shipwreck happens after arrival — being left alone in a foreign city without language, ties, work, or trust.
“Welcome opens the door,” he said. “Integration helps one cross the threshold.”
This distinction — between managing arrivals and rebuilding lives — runs through every major address Leo gave during his seven days in Spain. And his target wasn’t just Spain. It, too, was the United States.
Here’s a rundown.
