The Pope has always been a brilliant, dazzling figure, fundamentally visible as a representation of Jesus, Vicar of Christ on Earth, who was always said about him with forceful words. A kind of delegated divine vision.
I remember very well at my father’s house, where we had two girls to work all day with our brood of five children. One of them, Genoveva, Geno, was my father’s real housekeeper due to the untimely death of my mother. He used to say when something had been done and the author of the episode was not identified: “It must have been the Pope, or the Nuncio.”
Today, after having been through Rome many times, having seen John XXIII and also Francis in person, the idea that one has of the Pope is more complex, and that is how I tried to configure it in my last book, Pentagonía. Final Act (Séneca), which was published in May 2025. And where there is an interview precisely with the Argentine Vicar that we had for twelve years and who left us such a remarkable memory.
Now Pope Leo XIV arrives in Spain for a visit, with three important groups. It’s amazing how long he’s going to be here, something suspicious… of what? First in Madrid, because of the capital and the Kings, then Barcelona, where he will inaugurate the temple of the Sagrada Familia, the tallest in the world, built for the most part after the death of its architect, Gaudí (1926). And finally a third trip within the trip, specifically to the Canary Islands, to study firsthand the international migrations that have been so altered recently.
This Pope seems quite supportive of Spain, due to an injection of Hispanism he had in Lima, and he is sure to tell us interesting things. Adsum, Vicar.