Pope Leo XIV ackowledged Saturday he is competing for attention with another VIP in Madrid over the weekend, and the pontiff declared his preference in Spain's biggest soccer rivalry.
Puerto Rican sensation Bad Bunny performed two shows of his 10-concert Spanish tour in the capital.
Speaking to reporters aboard the papal plane before his arrival in Madrid on Saturday morning, Leo acknowledged the appeal of Bad Bunny when he referred to anecdotal reports of a newfound spiritual awakening, especially among young people in Spain.
The American pope said he understood that young adults are sensing a lack of meaning in their lives and mused that his visit might help "awaken” something in them.
"If they are confronted with the question ‘Do you want to go see Bad Bunny or do you want to go to see the pope?’ I think many will see Bad Bunny,” Leo said. "But I think there will also be a few here to see the pope. And that says something, you know.”
He's wasn't wrong: About 500,000 people, many of them young Spaniards, poured into a Madrid plaza for an evening prayer vigil on Saturday. They shouted "This is the youth of the pope!” as Leo zoomed around in his popemobile, and then jammed to a Spanish rendition of the 1970s American musical Godspell.
Leo was opening a weeklong visit to Spain on Saturday. After Madrid, the trip took him to Barcelona and the Canary Islands. He’s hoping to bring a message of unity in a country polarised with political and church scandals.
Leo was also asked about news that plans are moving ahead for his beloved Chicago Bears to move to Hammond, Indiana. The board of the team voted last week to move forward with a stadium development project in Hammond.
Asked if he had any words of consolation for Illinois, the Chicago-born pope quipped: "That’s out of my pay (scale).”
In other sporting comments, Leo confirmed that he would root for the United States in the upcoming World Cup, and showed his true team colours when asked about whether supports Real Madrid or the Barcelona soccer team: "That’s easy,” he said. "The pope is for all teams, but Prevost is Real Madrid,” he said, referring to his birth name.
Leo fielded a host of questions as he greeted journalists traveling with him. He spoke about Ukraine and Lebanon and his recent proclamation that the Catholic Church’s "just war” doctrine - which establishes the criteria when war can be morally justified - was "outdated.”
With Saturday marking the 82nd anniversary of the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944, Leo also told a French journalist that he would like one day to visit Normandy, France, as pope.
"My father was there,” he said.
It was a reference to Leo’s father, Louis Prevost, who served in the US Navy during World War II and participated in the D-Day landings at Normandy as part of Operation Overlord, according to the Pentagon.
Prevost also commanded an infantry landing craft, and after 15 months overseas, attained the rank of lieutenant junior grade, according to a note on the Pentagon website published soon after Leo’s election.
After the war, Prevost became a teacher and school principal in Chicago, got married and he and his wife, Mildred, had three boys. The future pope, Robert Prevost, was the youngest, born on Sept. 14, 1955. – AP
