Cardinal José Cobo has chosen Mar del Plata as the first stop on his trip to Argentina, which will last until September 12 and which the Archdiocese of Madrid frames within Generation Hope, a youth ministry project. He is accompanied by the rector of the Conciliar Seminary, Antonio Secilla, and the Youth Delegate, Laura Moreno, who are in charge of that project. On Saturday, he received at the Gran Hotel Provincial the plaque declaring him an Honorary Guest of the Partido de General Pueyrredón, a distinction granted by municipal decree. According to the chronicle in La Capital, he was received by businessman Florencio Aldrey, director of the newspaper, together with Mayor Agustín Neme, the emeritus bishop of Chascomús, Carlos Malfa, the head of the Naval Prefecture in the city, the head of the Naval Base, and the head of the Military Air Base. There was a lunch, and at the lunch, among other things, the expectation for the visit of Leo XIV to Argentina, scheduled for November 8 to 11, was discussed. The bishop of Mar del Plata, Jesuit Ernesto Giobando, did not attend “due to pastoral commitments.”
“Thank you very much, it is a great welcome, the first on my arrival in Argentina, and this speaks of very good ties in Mar del Plata,” Cobo said after receiving the plaque. On Sunday, at eleven o’clock, he presided at the diocesan Mass for Migrant and Refugee Day at the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Cecilia, organized by the Diocesan Commission for Migrants and Itinerants and concelebrated by Giobando and Malfa. He was received at the entrance by the bagpipe corps of the Galician Center; inside, the banners of the Forum of Communities: Italians, Spanish Club, Center of Castilla y León, Armenian Residents. In the first row, according to the photograph published by El Atlántico, Mayor Neme and businessman Aldrey. Giobando welcomed him as “a pilgrim of hope among us” and recalled that the Church of Mar del Plata “recognizes itself to a large extent as a debtor of the faith, culture, and evangelizing tradition received from Spain.”
The homily, whose text has been released by the diocese, begins by setting the framework: “For us, we are not asked for an economic analysis or a political analysis of migrations, nor a cultural analysis. We are asked to look at it from the Gospel.” The word that runs through the day’s readings, he said, is “brother”: “It does not speak of adversaries, not of strangers, not of problems, not of files.” Hence the warning against discourses “that present the migrant as a threat, as a problem, or as a burden,” discourses that “are globalized throughout the world,” “also here,” and which in his opinion create “a ‘we’ that is very small and only protects what is mine, what belongs to my group, what belongs to my border.” The “here” was Argentina, whose Government reformed the Migration Law by decree in May 2025 (DNU 366/2025) to tighten residency, citizenship, and deportations, and again expanded the grounds for deportation last July. Cobo did not cite the decree. He did admit that “the complexity of our migrations needs just laws, needs serious policies, and responsible action by our States,” with the clause that “no norm will be truly human if it forgets that it is at the service of each concrete person.”
The rest is the repertoire known in Madrid. “Do not start by talking about migrants, start with each person, start by naming them.” “The migrant, the one who arrives, is not only the recipient of our pastoral action: he is a member of the people of God.” Migrant ministry “cannot be reduced to occasional help or delegated only to some groups.” And the formula that summarizes the program: “to generate welcoming communities that live this fraternity prophetically as hope for our time,” with a quote from Leo XIV, who has called migrants “missionaries of hope.” Cobo gave as an example his own parishes, made up of “people who have come in recent years from many countries in Latin America,” and closed with an invitation: “The Church always builds bridges. In the Diocese of Madrid you also have a place.”
Two clarifications from the archives. La Capital and, following it, Religión Digital transcribe that “fraternal connection does not arise from the desire to win or to believe ourselves superior.” The text from the diocese says “fraternal correction,” which is what the Gospel for the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Mt 18:15-20) announces, the same one from which Cobo drew the “where two or three are gathered in my name” with which he ended the homily. And the Mass was celebrated, according to La Capital, under the motto of World Day 2026, “Even one of these little ones,” which Leo XIV dedicated on August 11 to migrant minors; in the text of the homily, the papal quote is that of the 2025 motto.
At the end, Cobo, Malfa, and Giobando paid tribute to Eduardo Pironio before the altar that bears his name. Pironio was bishop of Mar del Plata between 1972 and 1975 before moving to the Curia, and was beatified in December 2023. Cobo celebrated with his crozier: “It is quite a detail and it is a responsibility for all of us to keep it standing and also to continue asking for his protection for this diocese and for the whole Church.” He asked “that his example continue to shine” and explained why he was there: “I come to this diocese these days not only for the good landscape, but also hand in hand with Monsignor Carlos and other friends of Cardinal Pironio who have also brought me here.”
The coverage has been what was to be expected. La Capital, whose deputy director, Marcelo Pasetti, was at the Saturday lunch, wrote on Sunday that Cobo, “always clear in his concepts,” spoke “with outstanding oratory that captivated those present.” El Atlántico published the text of the homily with the indication “courtesy of the diocese.” Religión Digital took up the praise from La Capital, elevated it to a category—Cobo has been “very well received and valued, both by the bishops and by the press”—and concluded that his words on welcome “in the country governed by Milei” have been “more appreciated than in the one governed by Sánchez,” something it attributes, “perhaps,” to “the sensitivity of that Episcopate.” The trip comes after a summer in which the Ceuta crisis occupied the Spanish migration debate. The homily is the same one the cardinal preaches in Madrid. What changed was the front row.
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