{"id":37585,"date":"2026-06-09T19:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T19:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/37585\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T19:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T19:09:08","slug":"pope-leo-xiv-gets-caught-up-in-spains-great-debates-over-soccer-and-language-national-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/37585\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Leo XIV gets caught up in Spain&#8217;s great debates over soccer and language | National News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BARCELONA, Spain (AP) \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/pope-leo-xiv\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pope Leo XIV<\/a> found himself in the midst of two of Spain&#8217;s greatest rivalries \u2014 over soccer and language \u2014 as he landed in Barcelona on Tuesday during his <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/pope-leo-spain-barcelona-madrid-migration-ai-8475f27be9a3199e28fb8412228b1212\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">weeklong visit<\/a> to the country.<\/p>\n<p>Spaniards don\u2019t argue that much about issues like abortion or guns, but they do debate tirelessly about language and their favorite sport, whose significance transcends fandom.<\/p>\n<p>kAm%96 &amp;]$]\\3@C? 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HC:E6C }:4@=6 (:?7:6=5 4@?EC:3FE65 E@ E9:D C6A@CE]k^Am<\/p>\n<p>        &#13;<br \/>\n                                &#13;<\/p>\n<p>        &#13;<br \/>\n                            &#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n                            &#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n                            &#13;<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n                            &#13;<br \/>\n                                &#13;<br \/>\n                            &#13;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BARCELONA, Spain (AP) \u2014 Pope Leo XIV found himself in the midst of two of Spain&#8217;s greatest rivalries&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9948,1220,984,17885,1010,1743,17,396,394],"class_list":["post-37585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-catholic-church","tag-general-news","tag-language","tag-pope-leo-spain-barcelona-real-madrid-catalan","tag-religion","tag-soccer","tag-spain","tag-sports","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}