The Pontiff ended his apostolic journey in Tenerife, remarking on the "vocation of welcome" of the Canary Islands, an archipelago that has witnessed decades of immigration. During his stay, he visited a reception center for foreigners and held a meeting with migrants before presiding over a mass at the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
Addressing some 40,000 faithful, the Pope celebrated the Canary Islands' position "at the center of migratory routes," describing migration as an "occasion for encounter and mutual enrichment between peoples." This idea had already been expressed at the Las Raíces reception center in La Laguna.
In his final hours in Spain, Pope Robert Prevost, who confirmed this visit marks a new phase in his pontificate, showed greater spontaneity and warmth in his interactions. He visited the Las Raíces center, greeting around 600 migrants and entering their living quarters, where a young girl took his pectoral cross as he smiled.
In the Plaza del Cristo de La Laguna, the Pope empathized with testimonies on migratory integration, accompanied by African and Peruvian music. "Integration does not mean erasing the history of those who arrive or demanding they leave behind all that is part of their memory," he stated, adding that solidarity "surpasses any secondary concession or simple act of philanthropy."
Welcome, he insisted, "opens the door; integration helps to cross the threshold. Assistance places balm on the wound, and integration rebuilds the future.
Among the testimonies, Mbacke, a young Senegalese who arrived as an unaccompanied minor, asked the Pope to "continue reminding the world that behind every young migrant there is a dream, a praying mother, and a life that deserves a chance." Later, Khalid Allad, of Moroccan origin, recounted his difficult journey by boat and how his father forbade him from trying again after a tragedy, yet he persisted and rebuilt his life in the Canary Islands.
