Vatican briefing praises pro-abortion Spanish prime minister as champion of ‘social rights’

MADRID (LifeSiteNews) — A Vatican briefing document for journalists covering Pope Leo XIV’s trip to Spain describes socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez as a champion of “social rights” despite his government’s work to expand access to euthanasia and abortion.

On June 4, Spanish journalist María Rabell García published a document on El Debate distributed by the Holy See Press Office to accredited journalists ahead of Pope Leo XIV’s apostolic visit to Spain. The text, prepared by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication and intended to assist media coverage of the papal trip, presents Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez as a political leader who has promoted economic growth and “social rights.” The document will serve as background material for reporters covering events during the visit, including a private meeting between Pope Leo XIV and Sánchez scheduled for June 8 in Madrid.

“The text is presented as a working instrument that gathers information from various sources and does not have an official character,” the document states in its introductory section.

The cabasario (“working document”) includes “a biography of the Prime Minister that highlights his political record in very favorable terms.” It states that Sánchez has “revived economic growth and social rights in Spain,” even though his policies are strongly restrictive economically and inspired by the tenets of socialism.

Moreover, Sánchez recently pushed through Spain’s euthanasia law and is now fighting to turn abortion into a “constitutional right,” as has already happened in France. In addition, Sánchez’s government has carried out a media campaign against the Catholic Church, portraying it as the main institutional source of sexual abuse in Spain despite evidence to the contrary.

According to Rabell García, the document emphasizes that Sánchez “has led several progressive coalition governments” and that “his work is aimed at strengthening the welfare state and the ecological transition.”

Furthermore, the document notes that Sánchez has been “praised for showing no deferential fear toward certain decisions of Donald Trump’s U.S. administration” and that his policies have allowed “half a million immigrants to be recently regularized in the context of demographic aging.”

To complete the apologetic portrayal of the Spanish leader’s record, the document concludes by stressing that Sánchez “is going through a serious crisis of support and a delicate phase marked by demonstrations calling for his resignation.”

The dossier will be read by journalists from around the world, and will therefore influence the global narrative about the trip and about the prime minister himself.

Meanwhile, the Spanish government has been involved in another recent scandal involving the Church. On March 4–5, 2025, Cardinal José Cobo Cano, archbishop of Madrid, and Félix Bolaños, Spain’s minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations, co‑signed a secret agreement allowing the state to transform much of the Catholic Basilica of the Valley of the Fallen into a museum, without involving either the Benedictines responsible for the basilica, the Spanish bishops, or the Holy See.

The agreement was signed before the government announced a public competition for the church’s “reinterpretation” for political and ideological use, contradicting the cardinal’s public statements in which he had assured that his role was merely to “accompany” the process.

The secret agreement not only violates the 1979 agreements between Spain and the Holy See – which guarantee ecclesial autonomy in places of worship – but is also canonically invalid, since a church cannot be “fragmented” into sacred and profane parts (canons 1210–1214), and reduction to profane use can apply only to the entire building (canon 1222).

The Spanish bishops stated that they had not been informed of the agreement, and the Benedictines who administer the basilica have filed an appeal against the government.