The diplomacy of the Holy See has been, for centuries, one of the finest and most conscious in the world. Not out of a desire for power, but out of a deeply rooted conviction: every gesture of the Pope carries a weight that transcends the pastoral and inevitably projects onto the political chessboard. For that reason, Rome has historically known how to wait, postpone, renounce, or divert trips when the context threatened to contaminate the Pontiff’s spiritual mission. There were not a few occasions when visits to countries in the midst of institutional crises or on the eve of elections were discouraged, precisely to avoid the papal presence being used as a legitimizing photograph or as a balm for cornered governments.
In this medium, we have been critical of Francis, but the previous pontificate was particularly aware of this risk. Politically inflammatory moments were avoided for displacements, extreme caution was exercised in countries with open judicial processes against their leaders, and, in a very significant way, trips to Argentina itself were renounced for years so as not to condition, either in favor or against, successive deeply polarized governments. The Church thus preserved its freedom and, above all, avoided getting trapped in others’ crises.
A trip announced at the worst possible moment
That precedent makes it even more difficult to understand the lightness with which a visit by Pope Leo XIV to Spain is now being planned for the month of June, at the most delicate moment the country has experienced since the Transition. We don’t know if they read the Spanish press in Rome, but this is not an ordinary political tension or the typical wear and tear at the end of a legislative term. Spain is immersed in a genuine judicial storm surrounding the core of power and threatening to explode even more at any moment.
The government led by Pedro Sánchez faces an accumulation of cases that has no recent precedents. His wife, Begoña Gómez, is being processed in a case that could lead to a condemnatory sentence coinciding, precisely, with the dates of the papal trip. His brother will be tried from May 28 to June 4, and the sentence is expected to be published in June or July. The party supporting the government has its former Minister of Development, right-hand man and organizational secretary, in prison. Two organizational secretaries imprisoned in corruption schemes of enormous gravity while ongoing proceedings directly affect the financing and internal structure of the PSOE. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the totem and absolute symbol of Spanish socialism, is violently cornered, caught along with his front man, who has already been detained, destroying information and using untraceable phones. Closely linked to Maduro’s Venezuela, the investigations that would blow up the government through Zapatero seem imminent.
Meanwhile, the Central Operational Unit continues to carry out proceedings, searches, and document analyses whose real depth will only be known in the coming weeks. No one can guarantee—and no one in Madrid is seriously trying to—that new police actions will not occur in the midst of June, with direct impact on the president or his immediate circle.
Are no Spanish bishops, ideologies aside, aware that out of prudence it might be advisable to postpone the trip?
An institutional time bomb
Spain is today, without exaggeration, an institutional time bomb. And the possibility that its explosion coincides with the Pope’s presence on Spanish soil is not remote or fanciful, but perfectly plausible. The scenario would be catastrophic: international headlines mixing the pontifical visit with judicial convictions, police searches, or processing orders against central government figures. The image of the Pope, inevitably, would be trapped in a crisis that does not belong to him and that overflows any pastoral framework.
Is Rome being clearly informed?
The question that arises is not aggressive, but almost elementary. Don’t they read the Spanish press in Rome? Haven’t these open fronts, these ongoing cases, this climate of institutional decomposition been clearly explained? Has the risk been seriously assessed that the visit will be perceived, inside and outside Spain, as an informational oxygen balloon for a politically agonizing government?
The Church is not called to intervene in partisan struggles, but neither can it afford to be used as spiritual scenery for a massive distraction operation. Diplomatic prudence does not consist only in choosing careful words, but in knowing when a presence, however well-intentioned, is objectively imprudent.
When not traveling is also a pastoral act
Sometimes, not traveling is an act of governance. Sometimes, waiting protects more than appearing. And sometimes, the greatest pastoral charity consists in not exposing oneself to having the evangelical message buried under the noise of corruption, courts, and political collapse.
Spain, today, does not offer an ordinary context. And precisely for that reason, the final question, formulated with respect but with all the gravity it deserves, remains: has anyone clearly explained to Pope Leo XIV the Spain he is about to visit?