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June 7 (UPI) — Pope Leo drew more than 1 million people to an open-air mass in Madrid on Sunday morning to start his week-long visit to Spain.
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The mass, to celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi, was held in the Plaza de Cibeles and saw the Pontiff ride through the 1.2 million strong crowd that overflowed into nearby streets to the stage where he performed mass, The Guardian and The BBC reported.
Pope Leo arrived in Madrid on Saturday to start the visit, the first time in 15 years that a Pope has spent time in Spain, and was greeted with fanfare and Spanish King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia.
Along with the mass, Pope Leo had plans on Sunday to meet with the members of the Order of St. Augustine and attend a gathering of Spanish representatives of the country’s culture, arts, business and sports.
Among remarks in Pope Leo’s sermon, he told those in attendance that, like God, they should work to help “the poor, the downtrodden, those who are alone and forsaken,” adding that religion remains “a school of faith from which” they can draw in their daily lives.
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The large crowd on Sunday morning followed the Pope addressing between 500,000 and 600,000 people on Saturday night at a prayer vigil — and saw him address younger people in the crowd with the “6-7” hand gesture that has gone viral online.
Monday, the Pope is expected to address the gridlocked Spanish parliament, where his comments likely will address the type of political polarization in Spain and many other nations right now.
On Thursday, Pope Leo has plans to visit the Canary Islands, a landing spot for people looking to migrate to Spain.
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