Stop, repent or face God’s wrath

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LA LAGUNA, Spain (AP) — Pope Leo XIV He warned people smugglers on Friday that they would face God’s wrath for exploiting the desperation of migrants and demanded they stop and repent on this final day at the epicenter of Africa’s migration route to Europe.

For the second day in a row, the American pope in the Canary Islands insisted on the inherent dignity and rights of immigrants and demanded that they be welcomed and integrated into society, in some of his strongest comments on the politically divisive issue.

In his message to human traffickers at a meeting with humanitarian organizations helping immigrants on the island of Tenerife, Leo said, “Break these chains and release those you hold in captivity.”

Leo completed his work One week trip to Spain In the Spanish archipelago, which is closer to Africa than the Iberian Peninsula and was a major entry point for migrants making the perilous Atlantic crossing from West Africa.

It fulfills Pope Francis’ wish to visit the islands in memory of the thousands of lives lost at sea. It also highlights the Catholic Church’s biblically mandated mantra of “welcoming the stranger” amid anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe and the Trump administration’s mass deportation program in its home state of the United States.

During his meeting with aid groups in Tenerife, Leo implored aid-receiving communities to integrate people fleeing war, poverty and climate change and protect them from the “silent wreckage” of abandonment, when they are left on the streets with nothing after surviving perilous crossings.

“A human conscience, and even more importantly a Christian conscience, cannot remain indifferent in the face of these maritime cemeteries, in the face of the victims of shipwrecks and the lack of assistance,” Leo said. “Every life lost on these routes is a failure for the human family.”

Deadly parade and warning to traders

The Canary Islands have long been stepping stone For immigrants trying to reach Europe from West Africa and Morocco.

While human smugglers and smugglers operate the Atlantic route, there are also a large number of self-organized migrant boats, including many former fishermen from Senegal who have been left without income due to overfishing in recent years.

The number of immigrants arriving in the Canary Islands peaked at around 47,000 in 2024. There has been a dramatic decline, with more than 3,000 people descending there in the first five months of 2026.

Because of the vastness of the ocean and the scarcity of rescue vessels or tracking devices, some experts consider the Atlantic route to be deadlier than the better-known Central Mediterranean smuggling route, which runs from Libya and Tunisia to Italy. Since 2020, several West African boats have been found in the Caribbean and Latin America with only bodies on board after drifting across the Atlantic under the influence of trade winds and currents.

In his statement on Friday, Leo pointed the finger at the criminal organizations and individual smugglers who organize these “death routes” to Europe. Such smugglers charge thousands of euros per person and often force their passengers into prostitution or other black market businesses, with their documents retained, to pay off debts.

“Stop. Repent,” Leo said in his message to the smugglers, emphasizing each word in Spanish, drawing sustained applause from the crowd. “You will have to stand before divine justice for every life lost, every family betrayed, every body subjugated, every woman threatened, every worker exploited.”

“Repent while there is still time, for God’s mercy can reach even the hardest of sinners, but it only enters through the narrow gate of truth, justice and transformation,” he said.

With his two-day visit to the Canary Islands, Leo confirmed himself as the heir apparent to Francis’ emigration preaching, which has been a priority of Francis’ 12-year papacy and has frequently caused friction with the United States and European powers.

History’s first US-born pope not only echoed Francis’ messages and gestures, he expanded and strengthened them during his deeply symbolic visit. When he arrived on Thursday, Leo threw a bouquet of flowers into the sea from a port nicknamed the “Pier of Shame” where migrants were forced to live in squalor during a surge in arrivals in 2020.

Leo’s move echoed that of Francis in 2013 when he visited Lampedusa, Sicily, another flashpoint in Europe’s migration drama, which he condemned. “The globalization of indifference” What the world shows to refugees.

But the 70-year-old pope has added a new gesture to his repertoire as a sign that Leo has made the papacy his own: After an immigrant testified during Leo’s encounter on Friday, the pope joked with him by making the viral “6-7” hand gesture popular with young people. This earned the pope cheers and applause from the crowd.

Leo met with immigrants at the reception center

In his speech in the Canary Islands and on the Spanish mainland, Leo confirmed the right of migrants to stay at home as well as their right to escape, demanding that their countries of origin provide the necessary economic and security conditions. He shamed European countries that turn their back on migrants’ plights, and said Christian cannot remain indifferent.

For the Catholic Church, the process of integrating immigrants into a community could be a chance to spread the faith “without imposing it” and respecting the immigrants’ own faith, he said Friday.

Leo opened the last day of his trip by visiting the Las Raíces migrant camp. Leo received huge applause when he went off script to tell the immigrants that he would be speaking French and English, the languages ​​spoken by many people living in the camp.

One woman told him about the desperation that drove her to leave her hometown and family, the trauma of transitions, and her gratitude for finding a safe new life.

The woman, whose name was identified as Bousso Diouf, said, “We do not want privilege. We do not want pity. We only want respect, humanity and the chance to live with dignity.”

Next month, on July 4, the American pope will spend US Independence Day on the island of Lampedusa, where Francis in 2013 first condemned the “globalization of indifference” shown by the world to immigrants.

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