Recasting Theology, Recreating Communion. Reflections on Pope Leo’s upcoming trip to Spain

In a month’s time, Pope Leo XIV will travel to Spain under the motto: “Lift Up Your Eyes.” Naturally, I do not know what he will say in his many addresses, but the motto is beautiful, and gestures often speak more eloquently than words. In this case, the gesture lies in some of the visits included in the programme. To my mind, they constitute the most intentional and revealing aspect of this papal journey, far more than the reception by the King and Queen, the meetings with bishops, political representatives, or like-minded Catholic youth, and more than the large public Mass, the Corpus Christi procession, or Eucharistic Adoration. It is to these visits and to their theological implications that I wish to devote these reflections, written at the request of the editor of Religión Digital.

The Pope will visit the Cedia Shelter Centre for homeless people run by Caritas in Carabanchel (Madrid), the Brians 1 Prison (Barcelona), the port of Arguineguín (Gran Canaria), where migrants who survive the crossing in small boats arrive only to embark upon a long and uncertain ordeal, and the Las Raíces Reception Centre (Tenerife), a temporary shelter for migrants. There lies the heart of this journey. There lies the criterion of what is truly human—or divine: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” “I was in prison and you visited me.” “I was hungry and you gave me food.” “I was homeless and you gave me shelter.” To become a neighbour to another is the universal civic priority, just as it was for the Good Samaritan –viewed by the official Jewish establishment as a foreigner, if not a heretic– in Jesus’ parable. He saw the wounded man by the roadside, was moved with compassion, approached him, bound up his wounds, placed him on his own animal, took him to an inn, and cared for him. Everything has been done. Everything has been said.

I do not doubt that Leo XIV will know how to accompany such visits with his measured tone and forceful words. As he recently declared during his trip to Africa: “For the sea and the desert have been places of mutual enrichment among peoples and cultures for millennia. Woe to us if we turn them into graveyards where hope also dies!”. In Cameroon he proclaimed: “The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants.” And again: “The lords of war pretend not to know that it takes only an instant to destroy, whereas often a whole lifetime is not enough to rebuild. They turn a blind eye to the fact that billions of dollars are spent on killing and devastation, while the resources needed to heal, educate and rebuild are nowhere to be found.”In Equatorial Guinea he denounced the “colonisation” of Africa’s mineral wealth.

I welcome the fact that, amid the desolate global landscape through which we are living, Pope Leo’s voice—echoing that of Pope Francis—resounds in this tone and advocates so forcefully for global justice and peace. I welcome the fact that socio-political and ecological concerns occupy the centre of his preaching. And that he continues, like his predecessor, to be one of the most widely respected prophetic voices on the international stage.

Yet I cannot refrain from once again offering a number of reflections that seem fundamental to me in this age of profound and unsettling civilisational transformation. They may appear to be merely “theological” questions internal to the Church, but I maintain that no theological, ecclesial, or religious issue is unrelated to politics; and conversely, no socio-political issue is unrelated to theology, the Church, or religion in general. As the Pope’s visit to Spain approaches, I therefore ask myself: will his theological language—in speeches and press conferences alike—be consistent with the political transformation he calls for and that we all desire? I cannot know. Yet I believe I discern some clues in his recent journey to Africa.

On the return flight to the Vatican, when asked about the decision of German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Munich and Freising, to authorize the blessing of same-sex couples within his archdiocese, the Pope replied with his customary calm and natural manner: “The Holy See has made it clear that we do not agree with the formalized blessing of couples, in this case homosexual couples.” I do not know how to interpret that phrase, “we do not agree.” Does it mean that, despite this disagreement, the Pope will not prohibit the practice? What is perfectly clear, however, is that the Pope—or the papacy—does not recognize the love of a homosexual couple as a sacrament of Love. I find this difficult to understand coming from someone who claims to be the vicar of the one who said: “This is my commandment, that you love one another” (John 15:17). Or again: “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition” (Mark 7:8). Or simply: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12).

And I ask: in the disoriented world of 2026, can a politically subversive message be credible when it comes from an institutional Church that remains attached to homophobic prejudices in the name of Jesus? Will it be enough for German bishops—or any bishop—to authorize their priests (a term foreign to Jesus himself) to bless all couples equally, whether homosexual or heterosexual? That would be something, certainly. But the essential issue would remain unresolved. What would be required is a reversal, a subversion, of the archaic hierarchical, clerical, and patriarchal model of the Church. Every community should be able to choose a person—man or woman alike—and entrust that person, for an agreed period of time, with the authority to absolve and to bless, in the name of Jesus, both the bread of the Eucharist and the love of a couple, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation, without dependence upon a “sacred order” or upon a special power received from a bishop chosen by a pope elected by cardinals appointed by a previous pope. Otherwise, it would not be the Church of Jesus.

But let us return to the flight back from Africa and to the press conference. Immediately after the words just quoted, the Pope added with the same natural ease: “The unity or division of the Church should not revolve around sexual matters.” That statement is clear and, in itself, impeccable. Yet here too I find myself wondering about its actual implications. Did he mean that, within the Catholic Church, there will no longer be conflicts of communion with Rome –no censures, condemnations, or excommunications– simply because a theologian or a Catholic community does not follow Vatican doctrine or canon law in matters of sexuality? I would welcome such a development. But once again, I cannot help asking: will there also be no conflicts of ecclesial communion –no censures or condemnations– when an individual or a Catholic community upholds theological positions in other areas that the Holy See disapproves of? If not, I see a problem.

And does all this have anything to do with the Pope’s forthcoming journey to Spain? I believe it does. From the beginning of these reflections –and indeed from the beginning of the previous pontificate under Pope Francis– I have raised a question which, though not the most important, remains crucial: the indispensable need for coherence on the part of the Catholic institution between its political discourse ad extra (addressed to global society at large) and its religious-theological discourse ad intra (addressed to the Catholic community itself). This necessary coherence concerns two intimately connected dimensions: theological language and ecclesial communion. I know that none of the most urgent issues of our age is ultimately decided there. Yet the present credibility of the Catholic Church, its future, and its ability to transmit the inspiration that moved Jesus are partly at stake. And therefore, so too is its possible contribution to global justice and peace.

First, it seems urgent to me that the Catholic institution update its theological language: that, after centuries of delay, it reinvent its old doctrines, old canons, and old rubrics. Not that it should impose a new universally binding orthodoxy. Rather, it should affirm and open up a new possibility: the possibility that anyone who considers it necessary in order to follow Jesus and to identify as Christian and Catholic may freely and responsibly recreate theology, dogma, and institutions in their entirety. May it honour and restore the word God as the name of the ineffable Mystery and as the Breath and Presence of all things in all things. May it reinvent the Catholic institution and all its imperial and medieval structures. May it abolish the sacred pyramidal order, clericalism, and the patriarchy inherent within it. May it restore to the living Gospel of Jesus its inspired soul and its power to inspire. And thus may it help to resurrect hope—that is, the motivation, energy, and joy of dedicating oneself to the cause of a new humanity grounded in fraternity and sisterhood toward our sister Mother Earth and all living beings.

Secondly, it also seems urgent to me that the Vatican radically revise the foundations of ecclesial communion. May it cease to fear diversity, difference, and pluralism. May Rome cease to regard itself as the “perpetual and visible principle and foundation of unity” among Christians –unless this is understood to mean that the Bishop of Rome serves, for those Churches that desire it, as a guarantor of the recognition and respect of diversity–. May it extend to theology as a whole the statement Pope Leo made on the flight back from Africa: “The unity or division of the Church should not revolve around sexual matters.” May it come to recognize that no dogmatic idea or belief is essential to living faith or to the deep and genuine communion that exists among Christians, and that it is precisely the imposition of doctrines –always relative and open to discussion–   that breaks true communion. May no one be excluded from Jesus’ common table because of what they “believe” or cease to “believe.”

In this regard, I would recall three Bishops of Rome named Leo who, through their determination to impose their authority and doctrine upon the whole Church, ended up dividing it. In the fifth century, Leo the Great (Leo I) sought to exercise primacy over all Churches, persecuted the Manichaeans, imposed the dogma of Chalcedon (Jesus as one person possessing two complete natures, divine and human, “without confusion and without division”), and condemned numerous Churches that could neither understand nor accept that formulation. Five hundred years later, in 1054, Leo IX attempted to impose Roman authority upon all Churches and excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople, thereby provoking the division between the Churches of East and West. Five hundred years after that, in 1521, on the threshold of the Modern Age, Leo X excommunicated Luther and precipitated the rupture between Catholics and Protestants. Conclusio patet: it is not the denial of a doctrine, a literal dogma, or a canon that breaks communion, but rather their absolutization, rigidification, and imposition. Any theological opinion is less important than discrimination based on sex or gender—unless that theological opinion itself leads to domination or discrimination.

Lift up your eyes. Wake up. The hawthorn and the vine are already in bloom. Will theological manuals and rigid canons once again breathe the fresh spirit that inspired Jesus, the Palestinian prophet, so that justice and peace may flourish upon the earth—justice and peace that can flourish only together?

Aizarna, 7 May 2026

www.josearregi.com

Published in Religión Digital, in the Informe RD “La España que espera al papa”