The constant flow of people embarking in small, rickety boats to migrate abroad should force a reckoning as to why we have built a world where so many “must risk death to seek life”, Pope Leo has said as he warned: “We cannot grow accustomed to counting the dead.”
Thursday’s speech in the Canary Islands, on the final leg of the pontiff’s week-long tour of Spain, contained Leo’s most pointed comments to date on migration.
Standing near a memorial to the many who had braved the fierce swells of the Atlantic in the hope of carving out a better life in Europe, the pope railed against the world’s “indifference” and called on leaders to treat migrants more humanely.
“Even today, monsters lurk in these seas: mafias that traffic in despair, traffickers who enslave women and children, and those whose indifference allows the poor to be swallowed up by exploitation or oblivion,” he said.
Last year, an estimated 1,906 people died attempting to cross into Europe along the perilous Atlantic route.
Flanked by rescue ships and a simple wooden cross cobbled together from the wreckage of migrant boats, the US-born pope said it went against Christian values to “regard as foreign the cry of those who shout from the night”, and he warned that history would condemn those who did so.
“May history not accuse us of turning the pain of those who suffer into a common sight along our shores,” he said. “Today, here by the sea, every individual that arrives asks us what remains of our humanity. Sooner or later, it will be known whether we protected life or whether we yielded to indifference.”
The event was held at the dock of Arguineguín in Gran Canaria, which burst into the spotlight in 2020 after arrivals along the Atlantic route swelled. As Spanish media showed migrants left to sleep on the rat-infested dock and others who had gone weeks without blankets or showers, the wooden jetty became known across the country as the “dock of shame”.
After hitting a peak of more than 46,000 arrivals in 2024, the number of people crossing via the Atlantic route has dropped sharply. Rights groups have said EU cooperation with countries across Africa appears to be emphasising deterrence while turning a blind eye to the risk of rights abuses.
In his speech, the pope singled out Europe, urging people to see the tragedy of migration as a “call to conscience” for all of those involved. “Europe cannot claim to uphold human dignity while growing accustomed to the Mediterranean and Atlantic becoming graveyards without headstones,” he said.
The comments come as the EU pursues an increasingly hardline on irregular migration, from Italy’s escalating crackdown on the NGO rescue ships that ply the Mediterranean to a new bloc-wide law that critics say mimics the US administration’s ICE system.
In recent years, Spain’s Socialist-led government has sought to position itself as a notable exception, including by championing its efforts to regularise more than half a million undocumented people.
On Thursday, the pope expanded on this to call for “legal and safe pathways” for immigration, international cooperation to fight human trafficking, and funding to rescue migrants in distress at sea.
“Human dignity has no passport and does not lose its value when crossing a border,” he said. “Every boat that arrives does not bring only migrants, it brings with it a question: what kind of world have we built, if so many brothers and sisters must risk death in search of life?”
He capped off his speech by casting a wreath of flowers into the sea, accompanied by a moment of silence, to mourn those who had lost their lives while in transit.
It was an echo of a gesture made by Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, who visited the Italian island of Lampedusa in 2013 and denounced the “globalisation of indifference” towards migrants.
Thursday’s event also featured testimony of first responders, humanitarian workers and migrants, including that of a Nigerian woman who had risked all to enter Europe. “I had to choose: live in suffering, or cross and risk it all. Die trying, or stay and not have anything,” said the woman, whose journey led to her being trafficked into prostitution and led to her baby being snatched from her.
Leo responded by telling her she was a blessing from God and deserved happiness.
Later, he said: “Dear migrants, before saying anything else to you, I want to bow before your dignity,” inclining his head slightly. “You are not just numbers or files. You are people who have left behind families and homes. You have dreams that no one has the right to despise.”