Just days before June 11, 2026, a discreet but significant piece of information circulated in the corridors of ecclesiastical chancelleries: several West African episcopal conferences—notably from Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, and Nigeria—expressed their desire to be represented at the meeting that Pope Leo XIV would hold in the port of Arguineguín, on the island of Gran Canaria. This port is no ordinary place. It is here that the cayucos and makeshift canoes, having departed from the Senegalese and Mauritanian coasts after days of crossing the Atlantic, land their exhausted, starving, and broken human cargoes. It is here that Europe begins, for those who have survived.
The request from the African bishops, coordinated through SECAM—the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar—is being processed by the Apostolic Nunciature in Rabat, which diplomatically covers Morocco and the Canary Islands. It may appear logistical on the surface. In reality, it is profoundly theological.
For what these pastors are asking for is not a place in a protocol. They are asking that the face of the Church that welcomes be placed in the presence of the face of the Church that sends. They are asking that the encounter between the Successor of Peter and the survivors of the sea not be merely a gesture from the Christian West toward the suffering South, but an embrace of the universal Church with itself, in its own torn flesh.
The Church on two shores of the same shipwreck
A maritime route that is also a pastoral map
The figures speak for themselves with a starkness that no amount of commentary can soften. In 2024, more than 46,800 irregular migrants reached the Canary Islands, the vast majority departing from the coasts of Mauritania and Senegal. The so-called "Atlantic" or "Canary route" is now the deadliest in Europe, with more than 700 deaths or disappearances recorded in the first seven months of that year alone. During the first months of 2025, stricter coastal controls led to a relative decrease in arrivals, but by pushing departures from increasingly distant countries—Gambia, Guinea—they lengthened the crossings and exacerbated their peril.
What the statistics don't show is that behind every pirogue that lands in Arguineguín, there is a Catholic community, a parish, often a priest who blessed these men before their departure. Catholicism is vibrant in Senegal, even more so in Nigeria, a country with millions of faithful. These migrants don't come from nowhere. They come from living Churches, Churches that pray, that celebrate, that evangelize. When a young man from Dakar boards a pirogue, he is not only leaving his family: he is also leaving his Eucharistic community. And when he arrives—if he arrives—at the port of Arguineguín, he disembarks in the pastoral territory of another Church, that of Spain, that of the Canary Islands, that of Europe.
The fact that the African episcopal conferences want to be present on June 11th says this simply: we are the pastors of those you receive. Do not exclude us from the moment when the Successor of Peter embraces them.
Synodality put to the test by the open sea
There is a fundamental ecclesiological dimension to this request, and it deserves careful consideration. Since the Second Vatican Council, and even more so since the Synod on Synodality, the proceedings of which unfolded over several years, the Catholic Church has conceived of itself as a communion of local communities, a Ecclesia ex Ecclesiis, a Church made up of Churches. The model is not that of a center radiating outwards to passive peripheries, but that of a Church that "walks together", according to the very etymology of the word synodality.
However, in the migration issue, the opposite temptation looms. On the one hand, a Europe that manages, filters, and negotiates readmission agreements with third countries. On the other, an Africa that is invoked as the source of the problem, never as a partner in the solution. For this same pattern to be repeated, even unconsciously, in the way a papal visit is organized would be a blatant contradiction with the theology that the Church was professing just a few months ago in its synodal assemblies.
Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, Archbishop of Kinshasa and one of Africa's most influential voices in the Vatican, has repeatedly emphasized the need for African churches to be active participants, not passive recipients, in global dialogue. Migration is precisely one of the areas where this principle must be put into practice. This is what the West African bishops, by requesting to be present in Arguineguín, are bringing to the table with quiet dignity and evangelical resolve.
The apostle Paul, a stranger in every city where he preached, wrote to the Ephesians: «Therefore you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.» (Eph 2:19). This baptismal promise is the theological requirement to which the Church must submit itself first, before addressing it to the nations.
Arguineguín, a theological place
A port transformed into a sign
It is not insignificant that Leo XIV chose to begin his Canary Islands visit not with Mass at the stadium, nor with the formal meeting with the clergy at the Cathedral of Saint Anne, but with a visit to the port of Arguineguín. The Vatican's official agenda itself reflects a theological interpretation of reality: the Pope goes first to the peripheries, to the margins, before turning toward the center. This is a powerful hermeneutical gesture, indicating that the Church interprets reality from the peripheries, to use an expression dear to recent pastoral tradition.
The port of Arguineguín became famous in October 2020 when images of hundreds of migrants crammed onto a dock under tarpaulins, without sanitation or shelter, shocked international public opinion. Since then, Catholic and secular organizations have maintained a close presence there, distributing water, food, and clothing, assisting with administrative procedures, and giving a human face to what could otherwise be a bureaucratic nightmare. The Pope's visit there, his hearing the testimonies of four African and Latin American migrants, is a recognition of the sacramental value of this service. This is not a charitable visit. It is a liturgical act performed outside the walls of the papacy.
The presence of African bishops at that moment would transform this papal gesture into something even greater. It would signify that the pain expressed on that platform is acknowledged by the pastors of those who have experienced it. It would create a sign of the Church that transcends any diplomatic declaration.
The figure of the stranger in revelation
The figure of the stranger permeates the biblical tradition, and it confers upon him a dignity that is not only ethical but also revelatory. The Law of Moses tirelessly reiterates this obligation: «You shall not exploit or oppress the foreigner, for you yourselves were foreigners in the land of Egypt.» (Ex 22:20). A remarkable formulation: the memory of one's own vulnerability is the root of welcoming the other. Israel must welcome because it has been welcomed—or rather, because it has known what it is like not to be welcomed.
The Church's social doctrine amplified this tradition by articulating it around the inalienable dignity of the human person. Erga migrants caritas Christi, A document from the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants, published in 2004, reminds us that Christ's charity knows no borders and that welcoming migrants is an act of both corporal and spiritual mercy. But the doctrine is also realistic: it recognizes the right of states to regulate their migration flows, while stipulating that this right must be exercised with absolute respect for human dignity. The welcome is not unconditional in a logistical sense, but it is unconditional in an anthropological sense: each human being is an end in themselves, never a flow to be managed.
It is precisely here that the presence of African bishops provides an irreplaceable corrective. They understand the reasons why these young people board boats. They know the poverty, the violence, the harsh climate, the family pressure that drives sons to attempt the impossible. They know that behind every statistic, there is a baptized person whose sacraments they have sometimes celebrated. Their presence in the Canary Islands demonstrates that the pastoral response to migration cannot be solely European, because the crisis is not solely European.
Towards a shared ecclesial responsibility
Moving beyond the logic of assistance
At its 19th Plenary Assembly held in Accra in 2022, the SECAM chose the following working theme: «"Security and Migration in Africa and the Islands"». This was no coincidence. The African bishops refused to treat migration as an imported problem or an inevitable fate. They urged African governments to "put in place the structures and conditions that discourage irregular migration"—good governance, employment, security, and social justice. They emphasized that migration is a normal human phenomenon with a biblical basis, and that what is reprehensible is migration made unavoidable by poverty.
This interpretation opens up a horizon that a pastoral approach focused solely on welcoming refugees cannot encompass. While the Church in Europe is called to offer dignified welcome, the Church in Africa is called to create the conditions for a possible return—or for making leaving unnecessary. These two missions are complementary. Separating them institutionally amounts to treating the symptom without addressing the cause. The presence of African bishops in Arguineguín on June 11 would be the first concrete image of a Church that rejects this separation.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, recently emphasized that the Catholic Church carries within it a unique «legacy of welcoming immigrants» among global religious institutions. But this legacy can only bear fruit if the Church acts as a universal Church, and not as a collection of national structures eyeing each other warily across the seas.
Leo XIV between two continents
Pope Leo XIV, the first American pontiff in history, carried within him a migratory memory. Catholic America is made up of migrants and their descendants. His sensitivity to this issue was not learned from books; it was woven into the very fabric of his human and spiritual formation. By choosing to go to Arguineguín—this port that is both a gateway and a wall, an arrival and a confinement—he declared that his pontificate would not be limited to fine pronouncements on human dignity. He took action.
But a single papal act is not enough to build a Church policy. What is needed is an institutional framework that endures beyond the plane's return to Rome. This is precisely what the SECAM request foreshadows: the construction of a platform for ongoing dialogue between African and European Churches on the issue of migration. The nunciature in Rabat, by working to integrate this African presence into the program for June 11, is undertaking a commendable mediation effort.
The letter of the Apostle James, in its prophetic brutality, challenges those who believe and who witness suffering: «If a brother or sister is naked and deprived of daily food, and one of you says to them, »Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?” (James 2:15-16). The Church in the Canary Islands has been providing food and drink for years. But the African Church knows the names of those who are hungry. To finally bring them together in a shared pastoral gesture around the successor of Peter is to answer James' question in a different and more profound way.
Arguineguín may be the place where the Catholic Church can demonstrate, in a concrete and irrefutable way, that catholicity is not an abstract concept. It is a way of standing together, on both sides of the sea.
✝ Biblical references
3 passages · 3 books
Put on the armor of God to stand firm. (Ephesians 6:11)
Mystery of the Church, body of Christ: unity, new life and spiritual battle.
→ Explore the Codex Ephesians- Belgrade, crossroads of souls: Cardinal Nemet and the long patience of dialogue between Rome and Moscow
- The river still flows: Leo XIV, the liturgy, and American anxiety
- What Africa expects from Leo XIV: three Churches, three cries, one single question
- The altar and the barbed wire: when Catholics from India and Pakistan celebrate together in Wagah-Attari
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. (Exodus 20:2)
The liberation of Israel from Egyptian slavery and the giving of the Law at Sinai.
→ Explore the Exodus Codex
Faith without works is dead. (James 2:26)
Practical Christian wisdom: active faith, language, the poor, prayer and anointing of the sick.
→ Explore the Jacques Codex- The May diptych: when Leo XIV united the Ave Maria and social doctrine in a single evening
- When the Spirit breathes on the ashes: the Honduran Catholic Church facing the abyss
- «"Spiral of hatred": when Leo XIV names the unnamable from Castel Gandolfo
- When the Pope bequeaths a compass to the world: Leo XIV's diplomacy of the vulnerable
🌍 5 countries involved
Still largely marked by its Catholic heritage, Spain today has a majority of baptized people, even though religious practice is declining sharply. According to an ancient tradition, Christianity arrived there as early as the 1st century…
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In Guinea, Catholics represent approximately 10% of the population, a Christian minority in a country with a large Muslim majority. Evangelization began at the end of the 19th century thanks to the Holy Ghost Fathers and the Fathers…
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In Mauritania, Catholics represent a tiny minority of 0.2% in an Islamic state where Sharia law is part of the legal system. No structured Catholic evangelization has ever been able to take root there sustainably; the Muslim religion…
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With approximately 8,130 Catholics in a population of over 220 million, Nigeria is one of the largest Catholic countries in Africa in absolute numbers. Evangelization began in the 15th century with missionaries…
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In Senegal, Catholics represent approximately 4% of the population, a modest minority but one deeply rooted in the national life of a country with a very large Muslim majority. Evangelization began in the 15th century with…
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