Amid a packed schedule during his apostolic visit to Spain, Pope Leo XIV’s address to the country’s parliament stands out as a defining moment in a nation marked by deep political polarization.
At a May 6 news conference following the release of the pope’s official schedule, Archbishop Luis Argüello of Valladolid, president of the Spanish bishops’ conference, said Pope Leo’s highly anticipated address will be significant not only because of “what he represents within the Church, but also because he is recognized worldwide as a moral and spiritual guide.”
“Even before considering the actual content of the speech,” the very fact of that presence is already meaningful, he said.
Most notably, it will be the first time in history that a pope addresses the country’s parliament.
Archbishop Argüello also noted that, despite Spain’s highly divisive political atmosphere, the invitation to address parliament was made by the Senate leadership and by the leadership of the Congress of Deputies, and that both decisions were “unanimous.”
While political divisions are prominent globally, Spain has emerged as one of the most polarized countries, according to a recent study by the Edelman Trust Barometer, a public survey that measures trust in major institutions and public attitudes toward division, grievance and polarization.
Arriving to deeply polarized Spain
According to a 2026 study, 75 percent of respondents in Spain have an “insular trust mindset,” suggesting a high level of polarization. The global average is 70 percent. In short, the study says, many people are hesitant to trust those who think differently or rely on different information sources.
In a 2023 study, the Edelman Trust Barometer ranked Spain No. 4 among polarized countries, behind Argentina, Colombia and the United States.
“Within a Spanish society that is now very polarized, a call to harmony will be very good for us here in Spain,” said Alejandro Rodríguez de la Peña, a professor of medieval church history at San Pablo CEU University in Madrid.
Speaking with OSV News May 12, Rodríguez said that while past papal visits by Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI provoked rejection from either conservatives or liberals, when it comes to Pope Leo, “at least in Spain, the entire political spectrum, from left to right, greatly respects this voice.”
“For the moment, we can say that he is a figure who, more or less and with nuances, inspires a certain unanimous applause,” he said.
For Joseba Louzao, a professor of religious history at Cardenal Cisneros University College in Alcalá de Henares, Spain, one of the most striking sentiments noted by the Spanish press is that there seems to be tension “among the different political groups, both on the left and on the right, over what the Holy Father is going to say in Congress.”
“There is nervousness, knowing that there will be autonomy in that speech and that it could challenge the bases and foundations of partisan positions, both on the left and on the right,” Louzao told OSV News May 6. “I think that nervousness also helps Pope Leo exercise his moral authority with complete freedom and autonomy.”
At the same time, he noted, “Pope Leo knows that he cannot give a speech that can be easily used by the different political parties to defend their positions, and that is the great danger he will have to navigate.”
Challenge to address pro-life issues
Pope Leo’s concern over ideological divisions in Spain drew attention in February when the Spanish newspaper El País, reporting on the pope’s meeting with the executive commission of the Spanish bishops’ conference, alleged that the pope’s greatest concern was the rise of far-right ideological groups that “seek to win the Catholic vote” and “instrumentalize the Church.”
The article noted that far-right parties in Spain, particularly Vox, had become increasingly vocal against the Catholic Church and its stance on immigration.
The report from El País prompted a clarification from the Spanish bishops, who said the pope spoke with them about “the risks of subjecting faith to ideologies without mentioning any specific group.”
Earlier, in August 2025, Vox leader Santiago Abascal criticized the bishops after the Church expressed religious concerns following a local council measure that effectively banned Muslims from holding religious events in certain areas. Spain’s left-leaning government ordered the town of Jumilla, located in the southern region of Murcia, to drop the ban.
However, issues such as abortion and euthanasia also remain points of contention between the Catholic Church and liberal politicians, who view them as basic rights, while the church sees them as signs of what the late Pope Francis defined as the “throwaway culture.”
“In light of this profound vision of life as a gift to be cherished, and of the family as its responsible guardian, we categorically reject any practice that denies or exploits the origin of life and its development,” Pope Leo firmly stated in his major yearly address to the diplomatic corps in January, calling abortion a practice that “cuts short a growing life and refuses to welcome the gift of life.”
Rodríguez told OSV News that, on issues where the Catholic Church in Spain is being challenged, “it would be good for a serene voice – a voice that is not confrontational – to address.”
Nevertheless, he added, “there are some of the things the Church says that bother the new right, and some of the things the Church says that do not sit well with the left.”
“Either you give a speech where you don’t bother anyone, or you could give a speech where you proclaim the truth of the Gospel, even if it bothers people,” he added.
Louzao told OSV News that he believes Pope Leo, like his predecessors, will emphasize “the ethical and moral foundations of the Church’s magisterial position” and “not land on very concrete issues, so as not to feed polarization.”
“Even without referring to concrete problems, everyone will take those general words, from the ethical and moral foundations of the magisterium, and apply them to reality: to abortion, euthanasia, migration and positions regarding the armed conflicts being experienced in the world today,” he added.
Pope comes ‘to speak about God’
Another prominent issue on many people’s minds in Spain is political corruption. Several high-profile corruption cases, including those involving the wife and brother of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, have only widened the political divide.
“Taking into account that we are in the midst of several corruption cases currently being tried, I think that, even if he does not speak about corruption directly, it will resonate a great deal,” Louzao said. “If he speaks about this moral figure of the politician, the defense of human dignity, I think that will be very present, not so much in the speech to Parliament as throughout the whole trip.”
Both professors told OSV News that, in the fractured context of Spain’s political and ideological divide, Pope Leo’s speech could serve as a unifying voice of serenity, highlighting a much-needed message of peace and unity.
“I think the main function of the vicar of Christ is to remind people that God exists and that he has a message of redemption, and to proclaim Christ, because in the end the pope is not the protagonist: the pope comes to speak to us about God, not about himself,” Rodríguez told OSV News.
“I think he will calibrate the messages, and obviously, the message in parliament, or in other places of that kind, will be a more civic,” and focused on a “social message,” Rodriguez said, emphasizing that in religious venues and during the Corpus Christi procession in Madrid what will be heard is “a radical proclamation of the Gospel, which is what one expects from the pope,” he said.
Louzao added he believed “that at the national level, the milestone of Pope Leo XIV speaking in parliament is going to be a lesson about the role religion has in the public sphere.”
He said that “increasingly in Spain – although it may sound strange, because we are talking about how we are becoming an increasingly polarized country” – religion and the role of religion in the public sphere “are becoming more normalized.”
“And I think that is going to be a milestone, a before and after, because ultimately, even if it is a speech, it is a dialogue between the pontiff and Spanish politics,” he added.
