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Pope Leo XIV received a seven-minute standing ovation following his address to members of the Spanish Parliament during which he affirmed the dignity of unborn children, the elderly, and the sick.
During his apostolic journey to Spain, Leo delivered Monday a wide-ranging address to the country’s body of lawmakers.
Focusing primarily on the dignity of all human life, the Holy Father asserted that its defense belongs to everyone – not just to those of one side, political party, or religious group.
Welcoming all human life is “a goal of civilization,” he said, echoing a prior address last month to members of the European Parliament in which he pointed out the many problems associated with “zero-growth demographics,” or, the failure to produce enough children to replace the current population.
“And children are the future!” Leo observed.
“[I]f life ceases to be recognized as a fundamental value, what future can our societies have?” Pope Leo asked the Spanish lawmakers. “Can a community that casts into the shadows the unborn child, the elderly, the sick, those who suffer in silence, or those who depend entirely on the care of others be called fully just?”
The pope explained that a nation’s character is represented in how it treats the lives of those most vulnerable:
The defense of human life is neither a partisan issue nor a confessional interest: it is a goal of civilization. Every human life must be recognized and safeguarded from conception to its natural end, in every circumstance of its existence. When this certainty is obscured, the most vulnerable are the first victims, and the law loses its deepest meaning: to serve and protect every person. For this reason, the moral greatness of a nation is manifested, above all, in its capacity to accompany, protect and love those lives that are most fragile.
Pope Leo also affirmed that the family is “the primary human reality and the natural foundation of the community.”
“Where the family is upheld, the spiritual and social stability of nations is also strengthened,” he observed. “The family will always be the first school of humanity, where one learns, before anywhere else, the basic grammar of living together: welcoming life, caring for others, forgiving, serving and belonging.”
Addressing the topic of education, Pope Leo cited his own recent encyclical Magnifica Humanitas as he acknowledged that “many parents who wish for their children to learn to relate to others, to think critically, and to acquire solid values” are hopeful that schools will serve as “valuable allies in their children’s education.”
Still, “[t]his collaboration must always respect the ‘primary and inalienable right’ of parents to ‘choose the kind of education and formation for their children, in a manner consistent with their moral, cultural and religious convictions,’” he quoted from the encyclical.
“I invite you, then, to lift your gaze to the world around you, not to turn away from reality, but to remember that every decision by public authorities affects real people, especially those who have less power to make their voices heard,” Pope Leo encouraged the Spanish lawmakers. “The expanse of one’s vision consists precisely in looking more deeply at what is at stake in every public decision. This is why, alongside technical solutions and legal reforms, a moral renewal is also needed.”
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