Pope Leo the 14th is set to travel to Spain tomorrow.
He’ll spend a week visiting the country.
Joining us from Rome with more on this is CBS News foreign correspondent Chris Livce.
Chris, good morning.
What might we expect from this first papal visit to Spain in over a decade? Hey Arrol, good to see you.
Well, it’s really a trip of two worlds if you think about it.
You have Spain which represents this traditional stronghold of Catholicism, but that’s actually been changing quite rapidly thanks to secularization.
So up until the 70s, more than 90% of people in Spain identified as Catholic, whereas today it’s just over half.
So there’s a lot of people leaving the pews, especially young people in Spain.
Where is the growth in the Catholic Church? Well, it’s coming from places like Africa.
That’s where the Pope went on his last major visit.
And we’re seeing both of those worlds come together in places like the Canary Islands.
That is a place in Spain, just off the coast of Africa, off the coast of Morocco.
It is a hot spot for migrants.
The Pope is going to visit there in the last 2 days of his trip and is also a place where thousands of Africans try to reach every year, but many of them dying in the process.
So, expect some of the most poignant images of that trip to appear on that visit to the Canary Islands.
Errol and Chris, as you’ve covered previously, this is a pope interested in expanding the church’s reach in creative ways.
And just coincidentally, Bad Bunny is scheduled to be in Spain at the same time of the papal visit.
Bad Bunny’s fans speculating there may even be a potential crossover.
Uh, what are the chances, do you think? Well, Bad Bunny’s fans, hundreds of thousands of whom happen to be a part of that key demographic that the Catholic Church, especially in countries like Spain, is losing, young people.
So, Bad Bunny has definitely expressed an interest.
Catholic officials in Spain have also said that a meeting of these two is possible.
Nothing has been confirmed.
Various hypotheses have been thrown out there because they’re both going to be quite busy.
Bad Bunny with his concerts, the Pope meeting millions of people while he’s there for these two days that they’re overlapping in Madrid.
There has been talk of possibly creating a video link between these concerts and some of the Pope’s appearances.
Of course, this is all just conjecture.
Nobody knows exactly what’s going to happen, but stay tuned to CBS News.
We can all find out.
Chris, book your tickets now.
Uh, thanks so much.
Great to see you.
