Pope Leo XIV reminded migrants at a reception center on the Spanish island of Tenerife on Friday that “all of us are migrants” on the final day of a weeklong visit to Spain focused on the plight of illegal immigrants.
Tenerife is one of the Atlantic Canary Islands that has served as a conduit for tens of thousands of illegal migrants seeking a better life in Europe.
The leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics is ending his journey with a request for increased assistance to migrants and action against traffickers at a time when immigration remains a contentious political issue.
“In a sense, all of us are migrants, for we are all pilgrims on our way to our heavenly homeland,” he said in an address to hundreds of migrants at Las Raices (The Roots), a reception center housed in a former military barracks that was initially heavily criticized for overcrowding.
“Let us help make this journey more humane for everyone by contributing in whatever way we can,” he added.
The US-born pope is then scheduled to hold an open-air liturgy in the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in front of tens of thousands of people.
After visiting Madrid and Barcelona earlier this week, the pope arrived on Thursday in Gran Canaria, another island in the archipelago.
He criticized “indifference” to migrants and threw a wreath into the water at Arguineguin to commemorate the thousands who died attempting to reach the Canaries.
“Human dignity has no passport,” he said on the dockside before blessing a faded blue cross made of wood from a boat that migrants arrived on.
“Monsters lurk in these seas… traffickers who enslave women and children, and those whose indifference allows the poor to be swallowed up by exploitation or forgetfulness,” he said.
According to the International Organization for Migration, about 1,200 individuals perished or went missing on the journey from Africa to the Canary Islands last year, making it one of the world’s deadliest migration routes.
Europe, whose governments have tightened laws in response to far-right pressure, “cannot claim to uphold human dignity while growing accustomed to the Mediterranean and Atlantic becoming unmarked graves,” he said.
The pope stated that the tragedy must “appeal to the conscience” of countries of origin and transit where people leave poverty and violence and become victims of trafficking gangs.
“We really value this visit. It’s very important for us at such a critical moment,” Mohamed Amjahdi, who arrived in the islands from Morocco on a boat when he was 17, told AFP in Arguineguin.
The pope will fly from Tenerife to Rome, where he is expected to talk to reporters.
On July 4, Leo is due to visit another port of entry for refugees into Europe, the Italian island of Lampedusa, cementing the misery of migrants as a feature of his papacy.
