To the delight of many, Pope Leo XIV kicked off the Barcelona leg of his week-long visit to Spain with a few words in Catalan, calling on the faithful who had gathered in the city’s cathedral on Tuesday “to build harmony and communion beyond all polarisation”.
The pontiff’s familiar and commendable plea for people to set aside their differences may, however, have come a little late. Three days earlier, while chatting to journalists on the flight to Spain, Leo had made an awkward confession.
Asked whether he supported Real Madrid or their Catalan rivals FC Barcelona, he had artfully sought to separate the job from the man. “That’s easy: the pope is for all teams, but Robert Prevost is for Real Madrid!” he said.
Real Madrid, needless to say, were quick to upload the pontiff’s endorsement to social media, proclaiming: “The pope is a Real Madrid fan!”
His decision to weigh in on the divisive issue was swiftly compounded – in the minds of Barça fans, at least – by his visit to Real’s Santiago Bernabéu Stadium on Monday. Before addressing a huge rally in the stadium that evening, he found time to inspect the club’s silverware and to accept a shirt with “Robert F Prevost” on the back from the club president, Florentino Pérez.
For many non-Madrid fans – especially those in Spanish regions such as Catalonia that have strong identities and more than one official language – Real Madrid, who are known as Los Blancos because of their white kit, are viewed as another pillar of the central state.
Perhaps inevitably, the statement of papal preference was never going to go unremarked. Tomás Roncero, a popular sports commentator for the widely read Spanish sports daily AS, said in a video: “The pope can’t be for Barça because it is a sinful club … in his heart he is of a pure and clean club like Madrid.”
Neither the pope’s admission nor the giddiness it elicited from the Real Madrid camp went down well with Barcelona fans. “A figure as important as he is shouldn’t take sides,” Eduard Modroño, an office worker whose loyalties lie firmly in the Nou Camp, told the Associated Press.
Speaking outside the basilica of the Sagrada Familia, whose soaring Jesus Christ tower the pope will inaugurate on Wednesday evening, Modroño suggested it may not be a coincidence that Leo supports Los Blancos. “He wears all white, doesn’t he? Enough said.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report