Everything is in place for Pope Leo XIV to visit Spain in 2026. Official sources from the Archdiocese of Madrid have confirmed to ARA that the Archbishop of Madrid, José Cobo, and the Archbishop of Barcelona, Joan Josep Omella, will hold a meeting next Friday, January 9, at the Secretariat of State. The President of the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE), the Archbishop of Valladolid, Luis Argüello, is also expected to participate in this meeting, as confirmed by CEE sources, who refer to it as a meeting with the Conference's leadership. The Spanish cardinals will arrive in Rome two days before this meeting to participate in the gathering of cardinals from around the world convened by Pope Leo XIV on January 7 and 8. The objective will be to reflect on the future of the Church and the challenges of the Pope's pontificate. Cobo, Omella, and Argüello will then remain in the Vatican for another day to participate in this "summit" regarding the Pope's future visit to Spain. The leading hypothesis is that the Pope will visit Madrid and Barcelona in June, to mark the centenary of the death of architect Antoni Gaudí, although it is not ruled out that the pontiff—whose mother has Spanish origins—could extend his visit to other Spanish cities, such as Santiago de Compostela (whose eighth centenary will be celebrated in 2026), Valladolid, or Alba de Tormes, where the remains of Saint Teresa of Ávila rest. Pending official confirmation from the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV, who holds American and Peruvian citizenship, already expressed to the Spanish journalists accompanying him on his first trip to Turkey and Lebanon in late 2025 his desire to visit the land of his ancestors. "He can have more than just hope," confessed the pontiff, who speaks perfect Spanish and has traveled to Spain on numerous occasions as Superior General of the Order of Saint Augustine. Before becoming Pope, Robert Prevost visited Madrid, Málaga, Seville, Bilbao, Valladolid, León, and Ávila. And after being appointed Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops in 2024, he returned to Ávila to visit the birthplace of Saint Teresa of Ávila, where he signed the guestbook. During the Mass inaugurating his pontificate, celebrated on May 18, the King and Queen of Spain, Felipe VI and Letizia, conveyed to the Pope their desire to see him in the country soon. The formal invitation came later through the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa., whom Prevost received at the Vatican on October 1, and the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Almeida, who held a private audience with the Pope in December.

For centuries, the popes chose the village of Castel Gandolfo to spend the summer because it was cooler than torrid Rome. The first to break this tradition was Francis, but it seems that Leo XIV has decided to resume it, something that its residents await with enthusiasm and curiosity, as will the pilgrims who will follow him, reactivating tourism and local commerce.

Politics often provides strange traveling companions. And if you don't believe it, ask the Pope Leo XIV, who for his proclamation Mass filled St. Peter's Square at the Vatican to the rafters with 200,000 people, including world political leaders of all kinds of attire. Curiously, however, among all the pontiff's colorful guests, few people enjoyed a privilege related to the dress code, which is always monochromatic black when the papal act is solemn. Specifically, these privileged people were the queens of "Catholic countries," who have the privilege of being able to wear white before a pope, an ancient right that surely perhaps they no longer care in the least about, but which the gossip media finds joyful on a workday in which the main story consists solely of explaining something. so horny like a mass.

This morning Two conclave votes are scheduled, in Rome. Since the dean of cardinals gave Cardinal Parolin a double peace, it has been read between the lines that, this time, Parolin will contradict the saying: a cardinal will enter the conclave, and a pope will emerge. We'll see, because Pietro Parolin has campaigned, which began before Pope Francis's death, and there are cardinals who didn't like his candidacy. Parolin is more of a diplomat than a pastor; he's the current Secretary of State and he's the man who fits the idea that after a Polish pope, another German pope, and another Argentinian pope, the Vatican should put its house in order and return to an Italian pope, one who knows what's going on in the political and economic organization of the city. "inventions" (a word that refers to the Eurocentric vision of the Church). But we'll see.