Pope Leo XIV called for an “examination of conscience” on migration during a visit to the port of Arguineguín in Spain’s Canary Islands, a site that became a symbol of the collapse of migration management in 2020. Source: EWTN News.
The small fishing port on the southwest coast of Gran Canaria was once dubbed the “dock of shame” after more than 2600 migrants were left crowded outdoors there for weeks six years ago, many sleeping on rough concrete after crossing the Atlantic in fragile boats from Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Morocco, and parts of the Sahara.
Pope Leo yesterday turned the site into what many present described as a dock of hope.
“It is not enough to manage arrivals, distribute figures, reinforce borders, or mourn the dead once they have already died,” the Pope said.
Human dignity, he said, “requires legal and safe routes, rescue and assistance, real cooperation against traffickers, effective protection for victims, serious processes of welcome and integration, and policies that allow each person to live with dignity in his or her own land”.
Along the same lines, the Pope emphasised that while there is a right to seek refuge when one’s life is threatened, there is also a right not to be forced to migrate: “The right to remain in one’s own home without hunger, without war, without persecution, without violence, without the land becoming uninhabitable, without corruption stealing the bread of the poor, without weapons destroying the future of children.
“We cannot grow accustomed to counting the dead,” Leo said. “Human dignity has no passport and does not lose its value when crossing a border.”
The Canary Islands marked the final stop of Pope Leo XIV’s visit to Spain and one of its most symbolically charged moments. Migration remains an open wound in Europe and beyond, and Arguineguín has long stood as one of its most visible scars.
“This tragedy must become an examination of conscience,” the Pope said.
Leo directed his appeal to several audiences. Countries of origin, he said, “must create conditions of peace, justice, and development”. Countries of transit, he added, must “not leave the weak in the hands of criminal networks”.
The Pope also offered a direct message to ordinary Catholics.
“We kneel before the altar to adore Christ present in the Eucharist, from whom we receive the strength and the reason to live charity,” he said. “Therefore, we cannot then ‘pass by’ the cayucos and pateras (small boats), because from prayer all service flows and to it every commitment returns.”
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Pope Leo XIV calls for ‘examination of conscience’ on migrants at Canary Islands port (By Victoria Cardiel, EWTN News)
