Pope Meets Caritas Users
Pope Leo XIV Visits Madrid Caritas Center, Hearing Stories of Struggle and Hope
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Pope Leo XIV will step through the emergency night-center door of Madrid's CEDIA 24 Horas shelter at 18:00 CET today — not the main entrance, but what organizers call the "door of charity." The visit marks the first time a Pope has entered Madrid in 15 years, and his first major pastoral stop is not a palace or cathedral but a 70-bed Cáritas shelter in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods. El Periódico reported he will spend roughly eight minutes meeting 16 people whose lives represent homelessness, migration, and economic collapse.
The center, called CEDIA (Centro de Información y Acogida), sits in the Lucero district of Madrid, where the average annual income is just €14,083 — far below the city average. The area was recently fitted with 18 police cameras to combat drug crime. Cáritas served 2,534 people here in the past year, with 90 people passing through its doors every single day.
A Pope Skips the Palace, Enters a Shelter
After landing at Barajas Airport at 10:30 and meeting King Felipe VI, Queen Letizia, and President Pedro Sánchez, Pope Leo XIV followed a full day of state ceremony. Yet he chose a Cáritas emergency shelter as his first true pastoral encounter. Cardinal José Cobo, Archbishop of Madrid, called it an "evangelical gesture" showing a Church present in "the realities of the last ones," according to La Opinión de Murcia.
Pilar Algarate, Secretary General of Cáritas Madrid, said the visit "helps raise awareness of situations of extreme vulnerability." She did note one regret: security and logistics made it impossible to also visit the Cañada Real shantytown on the city's edge, according to La Opinión de Zamora.
Ten Faces of Struggle Behind the 16 Names
Among the 16 people the Pope will meet, two stories stand out. Elmer León left Peru four years ago after working in the mines. He was thrown out of his apartment and spent months sleeping on Madrid's streets before Cáritas helped him find work. He called the Pope's visit a "dream." Constantina Nchama, 33, arrived from Equatorial Guinea with two children. Her residency application was rejected, leaving her homeless. Through Cáritas, she has now trained to become a flight attendant, according to Levante EMV.
Others in the group include young people who crossed the Mediterranean on small boats called pateras, and former middle-class workers who lost everything after sudden illness or injury. Cáritas Madrid spent €35.7 million in 2025 helping people like them. Eighty-five percent of that money came from private donations, according to Diario de Mallorca.
Who Uses CEDIA and What They Find There
CEDIA runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It has 45 beds for men and 25 for women — 70 total. But it helps 90 people every day through its daytime services. Those services include showers, meals, psychological care, and help with paperwork to re-enter society. Experts warn that female homelessness is "hidden" — women often face more extreme trauma but are less visible on the streets, according to La Provincia.
Seventy-five percent of users are men. The neighborhood around the center, Calle Cullera, has seen violent crime linked to drug flats. Streets were cleaned and pest control was called in specifically before the Pope's arrival — a detail that has not gone unnoticed by local residents, according to El Periódico Mediterráneo.
What Comes Next: Parliament, Barcelona, and the Canary Islands
Tonight, after CEDIA, the Pope leads a prayer vigil with young people at Plaza de Lima at 20:30. Then, for the first time in history, he will address a joint session of the Spanish Parliament — where he is expected to push back against what he has called "techno-fascism" and challenge Spain's migration laws. Nearly 500,000 undocumented migrants are waiting for an "extraordinary regularization" that the Pope is expected to support publicly, according to El Correo Gallego.
After Madrid, the six-day trip moves to Barcelona on June 9-10, then to the Canary Islands on June 11-12. In the Canaries, Pope Leo XIV will visit migrant reception centers. The islands are currently dealing with a sharp rise in patera arrivals and a hantavirus outbreak, according to El Día.
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