SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Spain (OSV News) — During his seven days in Spain, Pope Leo XIV seemed to turn every popemobile route into an impromptu nursery procession, with children repeatedly stealing the spotlight — reaching for blessings, hugs, rosaries and a few precious moments with the Holy Father.
While organizers spent months preparing liturgies, speeches and public events, some of the most memorable moments of Pope Leo’s June 6-12 apostolic visit came through encounters with the youngest, whose curiosity, honesty and innocence seemed to draw out some of the pope’s most personal responses.
Renzo Pons Mendoza asked the pope about soccer and poverty, Valentina Sánchez walked him through the secrets of Sagrada Familia’s Jesus Christ Tower despite being blind, and Inés Rivero unexpectedly received a rosary from him. Those three moments made the humble Spanish kids global stars.
Renzo to Pope Leo: Do you like soccer?
Perhaps no child left a bigger impression than Renzo, a 6-year-old originally from Buenos Aires, whose letter to the pope became one of the most talked-about moments of the visit.
Standing before Pope Leo June 10 at St. Augustine Church in Barcelona’s Raval neighborhood, Renzo asked a series of questions that moved from soccer and childhood dreams to poverty, suffering and loneliness.
Did the pope like soccer? Had he wanted to be pope as a child? Why do some people suffer while others do not? Why are there people living on the streets? Why are so many grandparents alone? Should Christians always forgive?
The questions drew smiles, laughter and moments of visible emotion from those gathered in the church.
“You ask me if, as a child, I wanted to be pope. Well, Renzo, I do not think so. I do not think I ever really thought about it. But I can tell you this: Ever since I was little, I felt the desire to give my life to God,” the pope said.
“God desires everyone’s happiness,” the pope told Renzo. “That is why, more important than asking yourself if you will be a priest, a doctor, a teacher, a parent, or anything else, is asking yourself if you want to be a friend of Jesus. Because friendship with Jesus gives us joy.”
On suffering, Pope Leo acknowledged there are no easy answers. Pointing Renzo to the life of Christ, he noted that Jesus spent his life doing good and healing others, yet still endured the cross.
“Even though there is suffering, he never abandons any of his children,” the pope said of God.
When Renzo asked about lonely grandparents, Leo urged families not to allow isolation and abandonment to become the norm for older people.
“If we do not want to be lonely ourselves, we must not allow others to be lonely either,” he said.
And on forgiveness, the pope told the child that Christians are called to forgive always, while emphasizing that forgiveness does not mean pretending wrongdoing never happened.
The exchange offered one of the clearest examples yet of the pastoral style Pope Leo has displayed since his election: direct, personal and willing to engage difficult questions without oversimplifying them.
Renzo’s parents moved from Argentina to Barcelona more than three years ago seeking better opportunities for their children. According to his mother, Sandra Mendoza, the family prays the rosary together daily, often led by Renzo himself.
As an Argentinian living in Spain, Renzo also asked about football — for Americans, soccer — with the pope admitting “everyone now knows that I play tennis,” but that he played “football” when he was younger, “only American football.” He added that he “played football with the seminarians when I was in Trujillo — as a defender, if you are curious.”
“A little exercise is good for everyone,” the pope told Renzo. “We have to find ways to stay healthy: body, mind and soul.” But the pope said that soccer also helps remember that “life is not a race to live in isolation; it is a team sport, and we have to learn to work together.”
Valentina, guide to secrets of the new tower
If Renzo challenged the pope with questions, 13-year-old Valentina offered him a new way of seeing.
Blind since birth, the Barcelona teenager and talented violinist was chosen to present Pope Leo with an accessible model of the newly completed Tower of Jesus Christ at the Sagrada Familia before the pope blessed the structure June 10.
Running her fingers across the model, Valentina guided the pope, along with King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, through details of Antoni Gaudí’s design, describing windows, shields, geometric forms and the monumental cross crowning the tower.
She explained how the tower changes shape as it rises, and described Gaudí’s vision for light radiating from the cross above the city.
“My favorite part is the cross,” she said, adding that she was “excited, but not nervous,” to meet Pope Leo.
As the pope listened, it was Valentina who became the guide.
The presentation was organized by Spain’s National Organization of the Blind, known by its Spanish acronym ONCE, to demonstrate how adapted resources allow people with visual disabilities to experience architecture and cultural heritage through touch.
Valentina concluded by presenting the pope with a drawing showing how she imagines the tower. Leo responded by giving her a rosary.
“I will keep it forever,” she said.
The encounter became one of the most widely shared images of the day, with Spanish networks highlighting that those assumed to be receiving help are the ones who teach others.
Inés’ rosary adventure
Not every memorable encounter involved profound questions or symbolic lessons.
During a prayer vigil attended by some 40,000 people June 9 at Barcelona’s Lluis Companys Olympic Stadium, Pope Leo spent more than 15 minutes circling the venue in the popemobile, repeatedly stopping to greet children gathered along the route.
Among them was 5-year-old Inés, who had come with her family as part of a Regnum Christi group. Perched on a volunteer’s shoulders to get a better view of the pope, she carried a rosary wrapped around her wrist and hoped to give it to him.
When the popemobile stopped nearby, Pope Leo noticed the rosary and asked the little girl about it.
Inés tried to remove it from her wrist so she could present it to the pope, but despite her efforts, it would not come off completely.
“He told her not to worry,” her mother, Fernanda Rivero, recalled. “And then he gave her one of his own.”
The exchange lasted only seconds, but it left a lasting impression on the family. Inés walked away clutching both rosaries — the one she had hoped to give away and the one she had just received from the pope.
The child later told her mother she remembered only one thing from the encounter: that she had not managed to give her rosary to the pope.
For Fernanda, however, the moment carried a deeper meaning.
“It was like a hug from God to our family through the pope and through Inés,” she told OSV News. “He transmits so much peace, so much of God’s love.”
The experience also sparked an unexpected conversation with Inés’ older brother, Santiago, 8, who had made his first Communion less than a month earlier, on May 16.
Rivero said Santiago admitted he was a little jealous of the attention his sister received from the pope. She reminded him that God had touched each of them in a different way.
“I told him that he had the privilege of receiving Jesus into his heart in the Eucharist,” she said, “while Inés experienced God’s closeness through the embrace of the pope.”
For Fernanda, both encounters reflected the same reality.
“So many people are experiencing this closeness,” she said.
Ines San Martin writes for OSV News from Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain. She is the editor of Mission Magazine, a publication of the Pontifical Mission Societies USA.
