More than a million people on Sunday, June 7, lined the streets of Madrid as Pope Leo XIV celebrated an open-air Mass in the Spanish capital, organisers said.
Pope Leo XIV greeted the crowds as he made his way through the city in his popemobile on the second day of his official visit to the country, with King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia among the congregants for his morning service.
Worshippers shouted, “Long live the Pope,” as they waved Spanish and Vatican flags while others threw petals upon his arrival at the Plaza de Cibeles.
The Pope, in his sermon, urged those gathered to express their faith by helping others, saying God “identifies with the poor, the downtrodden, those who are alone and forsaken.”
He said they should not look at religion as “a museum of the past to be visited, but a school of faith from which to draw even today.”
The city’s streets were decorated with banners featuring the Pope’s face and thousands of white and yellow carnations, matching the Vatican flag’s colours.
Late on Saturday, May 6, the pontiff was joined by some 500,000 congregants – most of whom were young people – for a prayer vigil near Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu stadium, which stretched into the night.
“In the face of the emptiness of indifference and compliance, before the violence of war and lies, you must be the sparks of a new humanity,” Pope Leo XIV told those gathered.
