Fifteen years have passed since the last official visit of a pope to Spain. Leo XIV will go there from June 6 to 12. A journey which is a continuation of several of his predecessors, with the exception of François. John Paul II had in fact visited there five times, while Benedict XVI traveled there three times.
John Paul II, first pope to visit Spain
The first official visit of a pope to Spain dates back to October 31, 1982. Received in Madrid by King Juan Carlos I, John Paul II, elected four years earlier, then visited several cities, until November 9: Ávila, Salamanca, Toledo, Seville, Granada, Zaragoza, Montserrat, Barcelona, Valencia and Santiago de Compostela.
Two years later, he returned for a stopover in Zaragoza, mainly devoted to the Marian sanctuary of Our Lady of the Pilar. In August 1989, he went to Santiago de Compostela on the occasion of World Youth Day. It was during this visit that he presented his project of “new evangelization”, as a response to the secularization of Europe.
In June 1993, the Polish pontiff returned to Spain to participate in the International Eucharistic Congress in Seville and in the commemorations of the fifth centenary of the evangelization of America. Ten years later, despite declining health, John Paul II canonized five blessed Spaniards in Madrid.
Three trips for Benedict XVI
Elected to succeed the Polish pope, Benedict XVI made his first visit to Spain on July 8 and 9, 2006, in Valencia, as part of the fifth World Meeting of Families. This is his third apostolic trip since the start of his pontificate, after Germany and Poland.
On November 6 and 7, 2010, he returned to Spain for a shared trip between Santiago de Compostela and Barcelona, in the middle of the jubilee year. On this occasion, he consecrated the Sagrada Familia basilica.
His last visit to the country took place from August 18 to 21, 2011, during the World Youth Days organized in Madrid. More than a million young people from five continents take part in the celebrations. Two years later, Benedict XVI renounced the pontificate.
Francis never visited Spain
Although Spanish-speaking, Francis, pope from 2013 to 2025 and successor to Benedict XVI, has never visited Spain, despite several plans. A trip to Madrid had been planned for March 2015 for one day. However, according to several sources, the reservations expressed by bishops of other major Spanish cities irritated the pope, who wanted to wait for a common invitation from the Spanish episcopate.
Francis had nevertheless considered going to the Canaries, this Spanish archipelago located off the coast of Morocco, in particular to show his support for migrants. It was finally Leo XIV who would go there for the first time, stopping for his last stop in Gran Canaria and Tenerife on June 11 and 12.
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