Icons of faith and pop culture, Pope Leo XIV and Bad Bunny are both in Madrid, prompting discussions about emotional connections, the promise of new dialogue between tradition and contemporary culture, and who will prove more popular.
MADRID - This weekend, icons of faith and pop culture have circled each other in the Spanish capital like celestial bodies drawn close by gravity. One, the first U.S.-born pope, leader of 1.4 billion Catholics. The other, Bad Bunny - the Puerto Rican singer whose gospel of reggaeton has racked up more than 123 billion streams on Spotify.
Madrid, all of Spain and the celebrity-obsessed press have pondered the possibility of a supernova encounter, with Bad Bunny having requested to meet the Holy Father, according to a person familiar with his interest.
Either way, something special is taking shape on Pope Leo XIV’s first official trip to a major Catholic country in the West. The stoic Chicagoan, who began his papacy with the body language of an introvert, is displaying the makings of his own star turn.
In Spain, which has grown widely secular in recent decades and is one of the world’s most socially progressive nations, Leo drew an estimated 500,000 people Saturday night for a youth concert and prayer vigil and 1.1 million for a sprawling open-air Mass on Sunday that brought parts of Madrid to a standstill.
