Under the motto 'Lift up your eyes', Leo XIV will travel nearly 2,500 kilometres between 6 and 12 June on his first apostolic journey to Spain since he was elected pope on 8 May 2025.
The man who was still Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost just over a year ago arrived at Barajas from Rome’s Fiumicino airport.
Born on 14 September 1955 in Chicago, Leo XIV has deeply multicultural roots. His father was of French and Italian descent, while his mother came from a Creole family from Louisiana with Dominican, French, African and Spanish ancestors.
That heritage is no minor detail on this trip: Robert Francis Prevost Martínez has Spanish roots on his mother’s side, adding a personal dimension to a visit that already carries considerable historical weight.
He is the first American pope in the two millennia of the Catholic Church’s history. And he is also the first pontiff with dual nationality, American and Peruvian, as well as the first Augustinian pope in the history of Catholicism.
