Pope Leo wrapped up his week-long Spanish tour with a message that's sure to ruffle some nationalist feathers: we're all migrants, baby. Speaking Friday at a former military barracks turned reception center in Tenerife that has housed up to 4,000 people, the pontiff told a crowd of migrants that “yesterday’s foreigner may be today’s brother and neighbour.”
The Atlantic route to the Canary Islands is no joke - it's one of the world's deadliest migration paths, with an estimated 1,906 people (roughly five per day) dying last year trying to reach Europe. Leo framed their plight as universal: “In a sense, all of us are migrants, for we are all pilgrims on our way to our heavenly homeland. Let us help make this journey more humane for everyone by contributing in whatever way we can.”
His remarks came on the same day the EU's landmark migration overhaul took effect - a set of hardline measures that Human Rights Watch says “takes a sledgehammer to the right of asylum.” Leo called on leaders to do more, warning that many migrants face a “silent shipwreck” after arrival, left “alone in a city, without a voice, without ties, work or a sense of security, and susceptible to those who take advantage of vulnerability.”
The US-born pope has been clashing with far-right and conservative politicians who profess Christian values while taking a hard line on migrants. “A human conscience, and even more so a Christian conscience, cannot remain indifferent in the face of these graveyards of the sea,” he said. “Every life lost on these routes is a failure for the human family.”
Leo also had some choice words for people smugglers who charge thousands of euros per person, withhold documents, and force migrants into prostitution or black market labor: “Stop! Repent! For every life lost, every family deceived, every body subjugated, every woman threatened, every worker exploited, you will have to appear before divine justice.”
Earlier in the tour, the pope warned: “We cannot grow accustomed to counting the dead,” and asked why we built a world where so many “must risk death to seek life.”
Bousso Diouf, originally from Nigeria, spoke for the crowd: “The road to get here was not an easy one. The journey was full of fear, pain and uncertainty ... It meant facing hunger, cold, despair and often death.” Her request? Simple but profound: “We aren't asking for privileges. We aren't asking for compassion. We just want respect, humanity and the chance to live with dignity. Let us not be seen only as immigrants, as numbers or documents, but as people with history, with dreams, with families and with hope.”