On the fourth day of his Apostolic Journey to Spain, Pope Leo XIV closed his time in Madrid meeting volunteers before taking a short flight to the northeast part of the country: Barcelona.

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At a prayer vigil in Barcelona, Pope Leo encourages young people to embrace their spiritual restlessness, trust in God’s presence amid suffering and mental illness, and view forgiveness not as a single act but as a gradual journey of healing and reconciliation.

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A Kenyan religious sister of the Congregation of Servants of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, living and working in Barcelona, has expressed her prayer that the Pope's visit to Barcelona and Spain will be a time of renewal for all. She reflected on how Spain has historically sent missionaries around the world, and her life and ministry in the city were rooted in that gift of faith.

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MADRID (CNS) -- At the start of his fourth trip abroad, Pope Leo XIV humbly predicted that young Spaniards would more likely attend shows scheduled on the same days as his visit starring a fellow-American, Bad Bunny, who has the most audio streams in the world.

Instead, the pope was the bigger draw in Madrid June 6-8, packing massive stadiums, arenas and the wide squares and boulevards of this capital city with total attendees nearing 2 million people.

The U.S.-born Augustinian pope – a longtime missionary in Peru – chose to go to the land that had once sent waves of missionaries to the Americas, landing first in its capital: an urban hotspot for tourism, immigration and political wrangling. 

He assured the people of this increasingly secular nation that they already possess the resources needed to respond to its serious ongoing political, economic and social challenges – as long as they do it together, united in their God-given diversity.

"The Creator has woven human beings with threads of love," he told representatives of the world of culture, art, workers and athletes at Movistar Arena June 7. And now, each person must be a thread they weave into the larger fabric of their family, community and world.

"The desire for goodness, beauty and truth is rooted in the very DNA of humanity," he said. When each person reflects and recognizes that restless quest inside their heart, and when society offers the spaces for people to cultivate that desire and create together, then they build the common good, becoming, as Pope Francis had said, a kind of "artisan" of peace.

Pope Leo told journalists traveling with him on the papal plane June 6 that the Catholic Church has a message for everyone, not just for the faithful. This time, however, as the early missionaries sailed to the Americas, today's Catholics have to set out for the existential "new world" of their own streets.

Expanding on that theme before more than 80,000 Catholics in the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, the pope warned against retreating into comfortable circles of like-minded people.

"Seek the truth together," he said June 8, and include those who don't "always sing the same tune."

Leading the city's colorful Corpus Christi procession across the Plaza de Cibeles, surrounded by 1.2 million people, Pope Leo showed that Christ, present in the Eucharist, "is not confined to the church, but comes out to meet us" and walk with his people.

However, "it is not merely a matter of bringing out the monstrance," he said in his homily at the outdoor Mass June 7, "but of allowing ourselves to be brought out of our selfishness and indifference, of a comfortable, private faith, so as to respond to his invitation to conversion, to change our perspective, and to welcome his presence which transforms us and makes us builders of a new world."

While "no one can kneel before the Lord and despise their brother," Pope Leo also warned against practicing charity as a kind of philanthropy devoid of spiritual nourishment.

"We too are called to be present in the realities and challenges of society, not shying away, but personally committing ourselves to the building of the common good." 

The pope was not shy when speaking to Spain's parliament June 8, saying, "It falls to me today to speak a calm and firm word to those who bear the grave responsibility of legally ordering social coexistence."

As euthanasia and medically assisted suicide are legal in Spain and its government is now considering an amendment to constitutionally protect the right to abortion, Pope Leo said, "The defense of human life is neither a partisan issue nor a confessional interest: it is a goal of civilization." 

"Every human life must be recognized and safeguarded from conception to its natural end, in every circumstance of its existence. When this certainty is obscured, the most vulnerable are the first victims, and the law loses its deepest meaning: to serve and protect every person," including the ill, migrants and those utterly dependent on receiving care from others. 

His 30-minute address to lawmakers was met with a 6-minute standing ovation at the end, something that jubilant crowds repeated at other venues with shouts of "Long live the pope!" 

While the lengthy accolades made him visibly bashful, he soaked in the many moments during the trip that were dedicated to song, celebration, dance, blessing and embracing those who reached out to him.

"The strength of the Church does not come from the greatness of her resources, but from the holiness of her children, from the communion of her pastors, and from the humble and persevering fidelity of those who allow themselves to be guided by the Spirit," he told the nation's bishops June 8.  

Along their journey as bishops, Pope Leo said, they will "meet people who are going through dark times," including survivors of sexual abuse, and they will "call on us to be their Good Samaritans."

"The ecclesial community is called to respond with listening, truth, justice, reparation and an ever more determined commitment to prevention and a culture of care," he said, so they can find "real paths to healing."

Pope Leo met privately for nearly an hour at the apostolic nunciature with six men and women who experienced abuse by clergy, listening to their experiences and suggestions for how the church could respond to accusations more effectively. 

A common motif in many of Pope Leo's speeches was "darkness" and desolation. "Trials and failures offer an opportunity for reevaluation" and redemption, he told King Felipe VI of Spain and representatives of civil society and diplomats June 6.

Crisis can become a grace, as it did for Spain's St. Ignatius of Loyola when he gave credence to the disparate feelings in his heart and "understood that the good to which he was drawn was not illusory." 

In fact, he told young people at a prayer vigil that drew half a million people to Plaza de Lima that it was "precisely my encounter with the people’s hardships and also their joy" when serving in Peru that "helped me grow in my own journey following Jesus."

The most important journey of all, he said, is seeking the "fire of God’s love in our hearts! For there is the presence of Jesus, and the close presence of Jesus is felt even in the moments of our falls, because Jesus does not abandon us."

Their mission, he told the young people, was simply to be human: "men and women of flesh and blood! Not mere appearances, but trustworthy faces" who "seek justice because they hunger for it."

"You can change history," he said, when it is done with love.

Wrapping up the first leg of his trip in Real Madrid's soccer stadium June 8 before heading to Barcelona June 9, then the Canary Islands June 11, the pope continued, saying that love and kindness are key to living like Christ. 

"Let nothing trouble you; let nothing frighten you!" he said. "We must relearn the spiritual art of kindness, without which proclaiming the Gospel risks becoming impersonal and ineffective repetition, leaving room for frustration and mistrust."

"Kindness, even if it comes from just a few, can overcome the fear of many. Be, for everyone, like an open Bible: may the word of God be found in your faces and in your lives. Love, indeed, is the language that makes everyone feel at home."

Upon his arrival in Barcelona, Pope Leo XIV presides over midday prayer at the city's Cathedral, and encourages the Catholic community to be "witnesses and prophets of unity".

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"I was born in the way of truth: though my childhood was unaware of the greatness of the benefit, I knew it when trial came." Ephrem (or Eprhaim) the Syrian left us hundreds of hymns and poems on the faith that inflamed and inspired the whole Church, but few facts about his own inspiring life. Most historians infer from the lines quoted above that Ephrem was born into a Christian family -- although not baptized until an adult (the trial or furnace), which was common at the ...

MADRID (CNS) -- In a highly anticipated and historic speech to Spain's parliament, Pope Leo XIV urged modern-day leaders to be guided by ancient and Catholic principles that gave birth to universal human rights based on the inalienable dignity of the human person.

While Church and state legitimately remain separate, many virtues and aims of good governance and just laws are rooted in values profoundly marked and inspired by the Christian tradition, he told hundreds of lawmakers and leaders of judiciary branches June 6 in Spain's Congress of Deputies.

When lawmakers ask themselves "how to ensure that what is possible is just, that what is legal is truly humane, and that the will of the majority safeguards those goods that belong to all and respects that which no majority can legitimately violate," he said, the answer needs to "stand before the dignity of the person and pass that test without shame." 

Since landing in the capital June 6, Pope Leo has followed the usual protocols of meeting with the head of state -- King Felipe VI -- addressing representatives of civil society and diplomats, and spending time with local church-run charitable organizations, the Catholic faithful and the wider community.

Being invited to speak to a nation's lawmakers is a rare but not unprecedented event. The last three popes all became the first in history to address a nation's parliament or legislative body: St. John Paul II, being the first to speak before the Italian parliament and Poland's parliament; Pope Benedict XVI, to the parliaments of the United Kingdom and Germany; and Pope Francis, as the first pope to ever address a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress in 2015.

The U.S.-born Pope Leo, who spent nearly two decades serving in Peru, a land conquered by Spanish conquistadors and evangelized by its missionaries, became the first pontiff to address a joint session of Spain's legislative body.

International order is "crumbling," drifting away from norms aimed at coexistence, Francina Armengol, president of the Congress of Deputies, told the pope.

"We have no choice but to come together around what is essential and reformulate the measures that commit us to shaping a more just world" and work for human rights, she said before the pope's address. 

"We welcome you today with a willingness to listen and with the conviction that understanding among institutions, cultures and peoples is essential to addressing the great challenges of our time," said the leader during a time of severe political crisis in the country.

The government, led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, has been struggling with legislative deadlock, intense polarization and risks of collapse from corruption accusations and investigations.

It was against this political backdrop that Pope Leo took the floor, asking the leaders to look back at their own nation's rich history and to reflect more deeply into their own hearts.

"Spain has known how to view the human being as more than just a cog in the social, economic or political order," he said.

More than 500 years ago, Spain was a powerful monarchy and a growing global empire, conquering and colonizing the Americas, including extracting its natural resources and enslaving, coercing and killing its people.

These excesses and horrors triggered major moral and legal questions back in Spain, particularly among Catholic theologians who began debating whether Indigenous peoples had any rights and whether such military conquests were just. They radically challenged the long-held belief that Christianity, the papacy and a powerful empire could be the only source of or foundation for order and stability.

While classic and Christian thinkers, including St. Augustine, taught that the law must adhere to reason and is bound by a greater moral law rather than brute force, the 16th-century theologians in Salamanca, Spain, applied those ethical ideas to the new era's unfolding tragedies.

"When Spain found itself facing historic responsibilities of universal scope," Pope Leo said in his speech, the Catholic university in "Salamanca would undertake, with particular clarity, the moral and legal reflection that the situation demanded." 

Even though "society and the Church herself did not always live up to these insights found in their own Christian tradition," he said, these thinkers introduced the idea of "the irreducible value of every human being and the moral limits of power," which led to the core principles of international human rights. 

Spain's very own Christian thinkers "helped to shape a legal and moral consciousness capable of remembering that authority always entails responsibility and that every human being must be recognized as a subject of rights and duties," Pope Leo said.

Even today, the pope said, the whole world "continues to ask itself how to build peace on the recognition of the person and not on the imposition of force."

All those working in public service should be guided by the "Salamanca Question," he said, because power and coercion are still being wielded in old and new ways, including in "increasingly sensitive areas of personal and social life" with new technologies and biomedicine.

"Therefore, in the face of the transformations of our time, our discernment must focus on the place of the human person in our decision making and on how the dignity of work, solidarity, social policy and the common good are today being addressed in new ways," Pope Leo said.

"This discernment begins with a fundamental affirmation: every truly just society is built upon the recognition of the inviolable dignity of the human person. Such dignity precedes any concession by the state and cannot be subordinated to shifting social consensus or the whims of the majority at any given moment," he said, referring to Pope Benedict's address to the German parliament in 2011.

Recalling Pope Francis' criticism of a lingering "throwaway culture," which fails to recognize the inherent dignity of every human being, Pope Leo challenged the lawmakers to consider their serious "responsibility of legally ordering social coexistence."

"If life ceases to be recognized as a fundamental value, what future can our societies have? Can a community that casts into the shadows the unborn child, the elderly, the sick, those who suffer in silence, or those who depend entirely on the care of others be called fully just?"

As euthanasia and medically assisted suicide are legal in Spain and its government is now considering an amendment to constitutionally protect the right to abortion, Pope Leo said, "The defense of human life is neither a partisan issue nor a confessional interest: it is a goal of civilization."

When "the most vulnerable are the first victims," he said, "the law loses its deepest meaning: to serve and protect every person." 

"For this reason, the moral greatness of a nation is manifested, above all, in its capacity to accompany, protect and love those lives that are most fragile." 

"Without confusing the political order with the religious one," he said, it should be recognized that "modern freedom has also been shaped by a long education of conscience, deeply marked by the Christian tradition."

"In that inner school" of the human conscience, he said, "people learned that law must serve the good, that justice sets limits on force, that power requires legitimacy, that the poor belong fully to the community, that the foreigner must be welcomed in accordance with his dignity, and that human life can never be treated as a commodity."

A law attains "true greatness," he said, "when, in addition to being valid in form, it can stand before the dignity of the person and pass that test without shame."

A moral renewal is needed together with "technical solutions and legal reforms" to look "more deeply at what is at stake in every public decision," he said.

"I invite you, then, to lift your gaze to the world around you, not to turn away from reality, but to remember that every decision by public authorities affects real people, especially those who have less power to make their voices heard," Pope Leo said.

St. William of York, Bishop (Feast day is June 8th). William of York was the son of Count Herbert, treasurer to Henry I. His mother Emma, was the half-sister of King William. Young William became treasurer of the church of York at an early age and was elected archbishop of York in 1140. William's election was challenged on the grounds of simony and unchastity. He was cleared by Rome, but later, a new Pope, the Cistercian Eugene III, suspended William, and in 1147, he was deposed as ...

Bishop and missionary. A native of Wessex, England, he was the brother of Sts. Winebald and Walburga and was related through his mother to the great St. Boniface. After studying in a monastery in Waitham, in Hampshire, he went on a pilgrimage to Rome (c. 722) with his father, who died on the way at Lucca, Italy. Willibald continued on to Rome and then to Jerusalem. Captured by Saracens who thought him a spy, he was eventually released and continued on to all of the holy places and then to ...

The first bishop of Dromore in County Down, was this St. Colman, who founded a monastery there, probably about the year 514. He was venerated from early times in Scotland as well as in Ireland, and under the date of June 7 we find him mentioned in several of the ancient calendars of both Countries--sometimes as Mocholmoc, or Mocholmog--"my dear little Colum". The Felire of Oengus describes him as "the great descendant of Artae", but nothing is actually known of his parentage ...