{"id":179493,"date":"2025-06-12T22:31:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T22:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/179493\/"},"modified":"2025-06-12T22:31:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T22:31:11","slug":"pope-leo-xiv-says-hes-grateful-for-king-felipe-and-queen-letizias-papal-inauguration-attendance-as-he-receives-invite-to-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/179493\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Leo XIV says he&#8217;s grateful for King Felipe and Queen Letizia&#8217;s papal inauguration attendance as he receives invite to Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Though Pope Leo XIV will be stateside this weekend in his hometown of Chicago, he might soon find himself in Spain if he accepts King Felipe\u2019s invitation.<\/p>\n<p>A Holy See <a href=\"https:\/\/press.vatican.va\/content\/salastampa\/en\/bollettino\/pubblico\/2025\/06\/11\/250611h.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">press readout<\/a> from Thursday shows that the recently-elected pontiff held a phone call with Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez P\u00e9rez-Castej\u00f3n and \u201cexpressed his gratitude that King Felipe and Queen Letizia came to Rome\u201d for his papal inauguration.<\/p>\n<p>Queen Letizia is one of the few queens granted the <a href=\"https:\/\/royalcentral.co.uk\/royal-news\/what-is-the-privilege-du-blanc-210398\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">privilege du blanc<\/a>, a Catholic rite to some queens that allows them to wear white instead of the customary black in a Pope\u2019s presence.<\/p>\n<p>    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"537\" height=\"699\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Kign-Felipe-and-Queen-Letizia.png\" alt=\"King Felipe and Queen Letizia with Pope Leo XIV\" class=\"wp-image-210389\"  \/>King Felipe and Queen Letizia meet with Pope Leo XIV at his papal inauguration on 18 May 2025 (\u00a9 Casa de S.M. el Rey)   <\/p>\n<p>Prime Minister P\u00e9rez-Castej\u00f3n also passed along an invitation for Pope Leo XIV to visit while also discussing relevant issues to both Spain and Vatican City, \u201cincluding the migration crisis, the need to build bridges to resolve ongoing conflicts, and the defense of human dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>     At Pope Leo XIV\u2019s inauguration last month, King Felipe and Queen Letizia shared a message to their social media account in which they shared their intentions to \u201cconvey the best wishes on behalf of the Spanish people, the Government and the Royal Family for a venturous pontificate and who hope to see you soon in Spain.\u201d    <\/p>\n<p>Should Pope Leo XIV visit Spain, he would become the first pope since 2011 to visit the country. Pope Francis never made an official pastoral visit to Spain, but Pope Benedict XVI visited three times: in 2006, 2010 and 2011.<\/p>\n<p>Pope Leo XIV has yet to undertake any official pastoral visits but has met with several world leaders at the Vatican. On his inauguration day, 18 May, his first official visitors were President Dina Boluarte of Peru\u2014a country where he did much missionary work and served as Bishop of Chiclayo between 2005 and 2023\u2014and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Though Pope Leo XIV will be stateside this weekend in his hometown of Chicago, he might soon find&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-179493","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114672768606391429","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}