The visit, teaching, and work that Leo XIV is carrying out in Spain with his apostolic journey, which continues to our beloved Canary Islands, is proving impactful, highly significant, and profound. The Pope is showing us the most valuable aspects of life, culture, and the Christian-Catholic faith in our Hispanic American reality, with its universal and international perspective.

At the heart of it all is God the Father, revealed and incarnate in his Eternal Son, Jesus Christ, crucified and risen for his Kingdom, who bestows upon us the gift (Grace) of justice that liberates us from evil and death. This has been transmitted through the Tradition and teachings of the Church, with its saints, doctors, popes, and witnesses of this faith. Thus, as the Church has taught us in its Magisterium with  Delexi te  (DT) and the recent Magnifica Humanitas (MH), it points to a life of meaning, happiness, and fulfillment, fostered by this entire spiritual life of holiness, wisdom, and ethical and integral humanism inspired by this faith.

All of this has been, is, and we hope will be, as the Pope teaches us, witnessed by Spain and our beloved Latin American peoples, with peaks such as the Spanish Golden Age, which also extends throughout Latin America; with names, experiences, and realities as relevant as Saint Teresa of Jesus, Saint John of the Cross, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the School of Salamanca, Cervantes, missionaries such as Saint Toribio de Mogrovejo, A. Montesinos, and so many countless testimonies that can be cited in this regard.

From that essence of faith which is the Holy Spirit, following the humble and poor Jesus, who brings us the Kingdom of God with his liberating and integral salvation from all sin and injustice, this true spirituality of incarnation in reality is revealed to us. A  mysticism of open eyes , in union with the God of Love, who exercises compassionate and solidarity-based mercy in the face of suffering, evil, and any form of slavery or oppression.

Holy, spiritual, and moral existence stems from following Jesus, in the humility and evangelical poverty of the Kingdom, guided by his Beatitudes. This means loving fraternally, sharing faith, hope, life, possessions, and nonviolent action for justice with the poor, the victims, and the excluded. It stands in opposition to sin, selfishness, and its idols of wealth—being rich, having, possessing, ownership, power, war, and all forms of violence.

As can be seen, this spirituality of holiness, with its wisdom and humanism rooted in faith, is pioneering and inspiring to the  Church’s social doctrine  (CST), a constitutive dimension of all authentic mysticism and mission, the proclamation of human rights, international law, and so on. Along these lines, as the CST makes clear to us through Theology and Morals, emanate the foundations, the  natural and divine law with its non-negotiable and inalienable  anthropological, moral, and social values, principles, and criteria   . These precede the political community and can be denied by any state, authority, or law. Such as the first right and duty of the human being: to respect the sacred and inviolable  life and dignity  of every person in all its phases, from the beginning with the conception of the unborn child (as science also teaches us) until natural death, in all its dimensions and aspects. This makes visible all this foundation of social and moral life with its  global , human and theological anthropology and bioethics: which reveals to us the human being as the image and child of God and presence (sacrament) – especially the poor and the victim – of God himself in Christ; which is the most solid, permanent and transcendent foundation of the life and dignity of each person.

In this  integral ecology  , linked to its global bioethics, as shown by Catholic Social Teaching and this anthropological foundation, another of these non-negotiable principles and realities is affirmed:  marriage and family . This sanctuary of life and faithful love between man and woman, fruitful in the birth of children, is the vital cell of social and historical life. A family enlivened by faith is called to be holy, missionary, and a poor domestic church, committed to the common good, peace, and justice for the poor. Along these lines, another inalienable value or principle is the  educational and religious freedom  that individuals, families, and peoples have to choose the beliefs, faiths, and ideals that give meaning to their existence, that seek goodness, truth, and beauty.

All of this Social Doctrine of the Church, with its global ecology and bioethics, is expressed in social and historical life, especially through the principle of  the common good , a key element that must guide political life, states, and markets themselves, to universally ensure the conditions, rights, and integral human development of all humanity. In opposition to all forms of individualism and nationalism lacking solidarity, there is also the principle of  solidarity , a fundamental virtue that takes responsibility for this more universal common good, for all peoples, all countries, and especially through the preferential option for the poor of the earth.

Inextricably linked to this genuine solidarity that promotes the common good are other essential values ​​or principles, such as  social justice  and  the preferential option for the poor.  This is associated with the fundamental principle of all ethical and socioeconomic order:  the universal destination of goods , a “natural right” that takes precedence over private property, so that it may fulfill its inherent social and solidarity-based character. Likewise, these principles are closely correlated with the core of  human labor:  the dignity of the worker and their rights, such as a living wage, which takes precedence over capital (profit) and is a basic criterion for assessing the justice of our societies worldwide.

What has been presented so far, exercising that principal virtue which is  political charity , promotes  the civilization of love , the globalization of peace with integral human development and ecology, listening to the cry of the poor and the cry of Sister Earth. This stands in opposition to the growing social, international, military, and ecological inequalities and injustices, which are also the main reason why our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters have to leave their land, their homes, their families… The dignity of the person demands welcoming, integrating, and defending these migrant and refugee populations, thus fulfilling the right to human mobility, while at the same time ensuring they are not forced to migrate because of all these international inequalities and injustices. It is also a matter of promoting the principle of  subsidiarity , meaning that people, communities, and the poor are the main protagonists and agents of all social, public, political, economic, and cultural life, and of their integral development. with  global institutions  that control and regulate politics, states, markets, the economy, trade, and finance to achieve that civilization of love, the common good of all humanity, the globalization of solidarity, peace, and integral ecology.

All this spirituality and wisdom of holiness, with its humanism, as transmitted in Catholic Social Teaching through these principles and values, enables the  method  (path) and  discernment  of real life. That is,  to see  our world according to the heart of God in Christ,  to judge  (evaluate) the evils and injustices or the hopes of our humanity, and  to act  with communities, alongside popular movements or other organizations, for that new humanity, formed in holiness and justice, which God desires. A just, disarmed, and disarming peace that liberates us integrally from the evil and injustice of war, weapons, violence, and hatred. And to foster dialogue and encounter among cultures, civilizations, and religions for a global fraternal coexistence, in the face of all polarization, ideologization, and fundamentalism.