Actor joins Pope Leo XIV at Madrid gathering on culture, art, economics, and sports during the pope\u2019s apostolic visit to Spain.<\/p>\n
MADRID \u2014 This city\u02bcs Movistar Arena became a kind of modern \u201cCourt of the Gentiles\u201d on Sunday, where faith and contemporary art met to explore the mystery of the human person under the guidance of Pope Leo XIV.<\/p>\n
The gathering brought together leading figures from Spanish culture with an international profile, including actor Antonio Banderas. Sports were represented by legendary badminton player Carolina Mar\u00edn, a three-time world champion, while academia was represented by Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Coello de Portugal, vice rector for planning, coordination, and institutional relations at the Complutense University of Madrid.<\/p>\n
Representatives of labor unions and employers\u2019 organizations also presented the pope with their concerns and challenges, with the aim of working together to build a society oriented toward the common good and capable of overcoming fragmentation and polarization.<\/p>\n
Their presence was itself a sign that encounter remains possible even in a divided society.<\/p>\n
The historic meeting reflected the theme of the first papal trip to Spain in 15 years \u2014 \u201cLift up your gaze\u201d \u2014 and Pope Leo XIV\u2019s call to weave networks among different social actors, showing that beyond legitimate differences there is a firm desire to build strong, cross-sector alliances to face the challenges of the future.<\/p>\n
One of the highlights of the event was Banderas\u2019 address, in which he recited a text on the bond between faith and culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cI confess that I am a victim of God\u2019s spell,\u201d the actor said, looking directly at the pope.<\/p>\n
Banderas, who the previous day had directed the cast of the musical \u201cGodspell\u201d in a special performance during a prayer vigil with young people in Madrid\u2019s Plaza de Lima, also evoked the popular piety of his native M\u00e1laga and the Holy Week processions that marked his childhood.<\/p>\n
In his remarks, Banderas stressed art\u2019s ability to raise deep questions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a world that at times is overly simplified, art helps us recover the depth and the soul that is trying to be stolen by artificial intelligence,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Cardinal Jos\u00e9 Cobo, archbishop of Madrid, presented Pope Leo XIV as a reference point in the fight against extremism. Along those lines, the pope made clear that the Church has stood, from its earliest days, on the side of culture and art, fostering the encounter of different sensibilities in a shared search for transcendence.<\/p>\n
The Church\u2019s \u201clonging\u201d to remain in dialogue with the contemporary world<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Church, conscious both of her successes and her failures throughout history, longs to remain in dialogue with the contemporary world,\u201d Pope Leo said.<\/p>\n
In his address, the pope invited the world today not to dismiss the Church\u2019s \u201ccenturies-old experience,\u201d which he said has always \u201cproposed paths for a dignified life and the common good.\u201d In that context, he recalled St. Paul VI, who before the United Nations noted that, whatever one\u2019s opinion of the Roman Pontiff, his mission is well known.<\/p>\n
Pope Leo also cited his encyclical \u201cMagnifica humanitas,\u201d published May 25, 2025, to return to a central question: \u201cWhat does it mean to be truly human?\u201d<\/p>\n
To that question, he offered a clear answer: \u201cThe Church shares with humility, but also with firmness, what she has discovered through the experience of faith: that Jesus Christ responds to the great questions about human life and its fullness, already in this world and unto its fulfillment in eternity.\u201d<\/p>\n
To face these questions, the pope proposed a form of social dialogue that he compared to the art of weaving networks, based on \u201cencounter, listening, dialogue, and respect.\u201d The approach is not new to his visit to Spain. It was already present in his episcopal coat of arms and has been confirmed since his election as Roman Pontiff \u2014 a word meaning \u201cbridge builder\u201d \u2014 as one who builds a bridge first with God and then with people, societies, and cultures.<\/p>\n
In concrete terms, he explained that \u201cweaving networks\u201d means that \u201cthe university does not live with its back turned to the world of work or renounce the truth; that business activity does not see the employee as just another factor in the equation of its interests; that art does not have only the elites as its goal; that sport is not reduced to spectacle or turned into mere business; that technological progress takes into account the elderly, the poor, and those who have no voice.\u201d<\/p>\n
In that context, the pope \u2014 a mathematician by training \u2014 recalled with admiration the great classics of Spanish literature, citing Lope de Vega, St. Teresa of \u00c1vila, St. John of the Cross, and Calder\u00f3n de la Barca. He also recalled the serenity of the prose of St. Thomas Aquinas, from whom the Church has inherited the beautiful hymns of Corpus Christi, the solemnity celebrated Sunday.<\/p>\n
For the pope, weaving networks also means \u201cserving in a disinterested way,\u201d as men and women moved by faith have done throughout the centuries by founding hospitals, schools, and charitable initiatives. He therefore invited participants to ask honestly whether Europe could have forged its identity \u201cwithout the spiritual imprint that has marked its history.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a provocation, but an invitation to consider whether eternity, which broke into time and space through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, can once again be reconciled with everyday life,\u201d he said. \u201cIs it really possible to believe that Europe \u2014 which we love so much \u2014 would be itself without the imprint of faith? Why fear that eternity might permeate daily life?\u201d<\/p>\n
Finally, the pope said Christ restores the common good to its central place as an arbiter that \u201ccalms the greed of some and nourishes the hope of others, while desiring to save them all.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story was first published<\/a> by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Actor joins Pope Leo XIV at Madrid gathering on culture, art, economics, and sports during the pope\u2019s apostolic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[223435,24364,787,1503,146,223436,85,46,7501,223437,14655,2727],"class_list":["post-482407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-aci-prensa","tag-antonio-banderas","tag-art","tag-culture","tag-entertainment","tag-faith-and-culture","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-madrid","tag-magnifica-humanitas","tag-pope-leo-xiv","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}