On 8 June, Pope Leo XIV delivered a historic address to a joint session of both chambers of the Spanish Parliament in Madrid. In his speech, he stressed that the Church’s task is not to seek political power or to identify itself with any political party. Its calling is to defend the inviolable dignity of every human person and to recall the moral principles on which a just society is built.
According to the Pope, the Church participates in public debate above all as the voice of conscience. Its task is not to offer party-political solutions, but to uphold human dignity, the common good and care for the most vulnerable.
In perhaps the most important passage of his address, the Holy Father spoke about the protection of human life.
“Can a society truly be called just if it overlooks the unborn child, the elderly, the sick, those who suffer in silence, or those who are entirely dependent on the care of others? The defence of human life is neither a secondary issue nor a particular confessional interest. It is a measure of civilisation. Every human life must be recognised and protected from conception until natural death, at every stage of life. When this conviction fades, the most vulnerable are the first victims, and the law loses its deepest purpose: to serve and protect every human being. Therefore, the moral greatness of a nation is revealed above all in its ability to stand beside those who are most vulnerable, to protect them and to love them.”
Leo XIV also addressed the place of the family, religious freedom, migration, peace and the ethical challenges posed by new technologies. According to the Pope, these questions are united by the same fundamental principle: human dignity is not a privilege granted by the state, nor is it something for a majority to decide. It belongs to every human being by virtue of his or her very existence.
In his historic address, the Pope called on both political leaders and society as a whole to build a culture in which the human dignity of the most vulnerable is not regarded as a matter for negotiation, but as the foundation of a just society.
Fides / Vatican News / vatican.va