Pope Leo heads to Barcelona on Spain tour focused on war and migration

Pope Leo set off on Tuesday for the second stop of his visit to Spain, flying from Madrid to Barcelona as part of a week-long tour in which he has warned that escalating conflicts have pushed the world into a profound crisis.

Leo, who has adopted a more forceful tone recently against the direction of global leadership, also told Spain's parliament on Monday that the "moral greatness" of any country depended on how it treated migrants and other vulnerable populations.

In a farewell speech on Tuesday before leaving Madrid, the first U.S. pope urged Catholics in the city to be selfless and help those in need.

"In a world that is constantly influenced by a logic of self-interest and profit ... it is important to think and live according to a more authentic mentality," he said.

Leo was due to land in Barcelona after around an hour-long flight, before meeting the leader of the northeastern region of Catalonia and a prayer vigil with young people at the Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium.

SAGRADA FAMILIA TOWER

The centrepiece of Leo's visit to Barcelona will be on Wednesday, when the pope will visit an abbey in nearby Montserrat and inaugurate the newest tower of the Sagrada Familia, the modernist basilica that has become the world's tallest church.

The visit to the basilica is also celebrating the legacy of its architect, Antoni Gaudí, whose designs were mocked in his lifetime but are now being praised. A fervent Catholic who died on June 10, 1926, he is on the path to Catholic sainthood.

The pope, who met six victims of sexual abuse by members of Spain's clergy on Monday, has been criticised by some abuse survivors for his plans to visit the abbey in Montserrat.

It was included in a ​2023 report ⁠by Spain's human rights ombudsman that estimated that hundreds ​of thousands of victims had been abused by Spanish clergy over decades. In 2019, the abbot of Montserrat publicly apologised to victims of sexual abuse at the abbey's school.

Leo's visit to Spain will culminate on Friday in the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off western Africa, where the pope will meet some 1,000 migrants who have crossed dangerous Atlantic waters on small dinghies to reach Europe.

In his speech to parliament on Monday, the pope said a lack of help for the world's migrants was ​challenging "the ethical foundation of the international order".

-Reporting by Joshua McElwee; Editing by David Latona and Alison Williams/Reuters