The religious authorities of the Canary Islands maintain the theory of a potential stopover by Pope Francis in Gran Canaria, where the headquarters of the Air and Space Army is located on the islands, on his way or returning from Argentina in 2024. This stopover would serve to visit the south of Gran Canaria and, specifically, hold an ecumenical meeting in Maspalomas regarding the immigration that exists on the islands with multiple nationalities. This depends on the mobility difficulties he presents and the age of 87 he will be next year.
The Pope's visits are planned two years in advance and already in the summer of 2023, Mayor Marco Aurelio Pérez made an official invitation in person for him to stay and rest in Gran Canaria. Pérez does not want a fleeting visit by the Holy Father to Maspalomas to be seen as a tourism promotion tool, but he does want the south of Gran Canaria to host the World Youth Day in the summer of 2028. The one in Lisbon attracted more than half a million pilgrims. World Youth Day 2027 will be celebrated on other islands, those of the Philippines. There is time to prepare all this and associate families and young people with the destination. Is there space to celebrate an event of this magnitude? Yes. It is not a congress of physiotherapists in Expomeloneras, it is another concept. They stay in tents and houses of people who host them. The trip to Argentina in 2024 will depend on Vatican diplomacy and relations with the new government of Javier Milei.
But the Canarian executive branch has other plans. The president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, during his visit to the Vatican next January, will invite Pope Francis to travel to the archipelago, since among the issues that he will convey to him is the humanitarian emergency of the migratory crisis suffered by the islands, where more than 2023 migrants have arrived so far in 35.400, of which more than 4.500 unaccompanied migrant minors. Sources familiar with the Canarian religious environment see it as absurd that Pope Francis goes to the island of El Hierro when in Gran Canaria he has the same problems due to security and logistics. If he goes to Las Palmas, the space chosen would be under military jurisdiction while in Maspalomas it would be religious as there is the recently renovated Ecumenical Temple of Maspalomas.
The pontiff is scheduled to receive the Canarian president in a private audience on January 15 at the Vatican, which will also be attended by the three bishops of the Canary Islands, Bernardo Álvarez, José Mazuelos and Cristóbal Déniz. On November 20, Pope Francis sent a letter to the bishops of the Canary Islands in which he expressed his "encouragement and closeness" in the face of the "difficult situation" that the archipelago is going through due to the migratory crisis, while thanking them for their "great efforts" to respond to the emergency situation.
