More than 1.2 million people filled the streets of Madrid on Sunday for a mass by Pope Leo XIV at which he called for a renewal of the Catholic faith in Spain.

King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia joined throngs of devotees waving Spanish and Vatican flags in Cibeles Square for a service filled with religious symbolism.

In his homily, Pope Leo said Spaniards should not look at religion as “a museum of the past to be visited, but a school of faith from which to draw even today”.

The mass comes on day two of Pope Leo’s seven-day visit to Spain, a traditional Catholic bastion where religious observance has been declining sharply in recent years as in much of western Europe.

A huge logistical and security operation was in place for the event, after which the pope led a traditional procession along a route lined with white and yellow carnations — the Vatican flag colours.

Organisers said there were more than 1.2 million people attending in the square and the surrounding area.

Nico Aldeanueva, 28, who was visiting from Philadelphia in the United States, said the pope was “a very unifying force in a moment where we have division across so many different fronts”.

“We have, it seems like, never-ending conflict and for the time being here you get to hit pause and get to enjoy the moment and feel the faith.”

Ana Milagros, 64, who was waving a Vatican flag, said she thought the US-born pope seemed “approachable” and “very sincere”.

“There is a lot of polarisation and differences in politics, in social matters, in the economy,” she said, adding: “The pope is trying with this visit… to help all of us.”

Later on Sunday, Leo will meet the leading lights of culture, sport and the economy at an arena, with the aim of fostering dialogue between faith and modern civil society.

Around 56 percent of Spaniards identify as Catholic compared to 90 percent in the 1970s, according to a survey last month by the Centre for Sociological Research, an autonomous government body.

On Saturday, 500,000 mostly young attendees congregated with Leo outside Real Madrid’s Bernabeu stadium for a prayer vigil that stretched into the night.

Leo kicked off his visit with pomp and ceremony at a reception in Madrid’s royal palace, where he called for an end to “polarising narratives” and “sterile simplifications”.

The pope also praised Spain, whose left-wing government has sparred with his native United States as well as Israel over wars in the Middle East, for its “active commitment to peace and solidarity among peoples”.

Leo is due to visit Barcelona on Tuesday and Wednesday, where he will notably bless the Sagrada Familia basilica’s recently completed tower, which made it the world’s tallest church.

His trip will end with a focus on migration on Thursday and Friday in the Canary Islands, a key destination for irregular arrivals, with thousands dying in the Atlantic Ocean trying to reach them.



AFP

President Donald Trump on Thursday slammed a vote in the US House seeking to order the withdrawal of American troops from the Iran war, suggesting the “unpatriotic” move disrupted negotiations with Tehran.

The largely symbolic vote came “right in the middle of my final negotiations to end the War with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

“Who would do such an unpatriotic thing. They know where the negotiations stand.”

In a notable rebuke of Trump, four members of his majority Republicans joined Democrats on Wednesday in backing the measure, which passed 215-208 and now heads to the Senate.

The measure, which will ultimately face a presidential veto, marked the first time the Republican-controlled House approved a measure seeking to force Trump to wind down military operations against Tehran since the war began three months ago.

Democrats accuse Trump of violating the constitution by launching strikes on Iran alongside Israel in late February without congressional authorization.

Under the War Powers Act, presidents have 60 days to obtain congressional approval after introducing US forces into hostilities. That deadline passed weeks ago, and Democrats say Trump is now breaking the law.

“(Democrats) would rather have our Country fail than give me another, of many, victories,” Trump said.

“The four Republicans, that’s a whole other story — They’re GRANDSTANDERS! They should be ashamed of themselves.”

The United States and Iran said Monday they had again traded strikes, straining an already fragile ceasefire as negotiations between the two sides have stalled.

Weeks of complicated talks marked by sharp rhetoric and occasional flare-ups of violence have not managed to reach a deal to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which is essential to oil supplies.

Washington and Tehran have sharp differences on questions like Iranian nuclear efforts and the fighting in Lebanon, which Iran has demanded must stop as part of a broader agreement.

The latest exchange of fire coincided with Israel expanding its offensive in Lebanon, with Prime Minister Netanyahu vowing to push deeper into the country.

This picture, taken from a position in northern Israel on the border with southern Lebanon, shows an Israeli soldier taking position on the balcony of a building on May 31, 2026.


The US military announced that it had carried out “self-defense strikes” on Iranian radar and drone control sites in the southern part of the country over the weekend — its third such wave in just over a week.

The strikes were in response to the downing of a US MQ-1 drone, it added.

Shortly after, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they targeted an “air base from which the attack originated” used by the US military, state broadcaster IRIB reported Monday, without specifying the location of the base.

The Guards’ announcement came on the heels of the Kuwaiti military saying its air defences intercepted “hostile missile and drone attacks”, without mentioning where attack originated.

Sticking Points
Iran was already in talks with the United States about the fate of its nuclear programme in February when the US and Israel launched air and missile strikes that wiped out much of the Islamic Republic’s senior leadership.

While Tehran has long insisted that its nuclear programme is for purely civilian ends, the United States and its Western allies suspect it aims to develop a weapon.

The New York Times and Axios reported on Saturday that Trump had sent back a “tougher” new framework to be considered by Iran, though details remain unclear.

Trump has said his priorities include stopping Iran from developing any nuclear weapons and reopening the Hormuz shipping lane, which Iran has blockaded since the war began.

“The one guarantee that I have to have is that there will be no nuclear weapons. They’ve agreed to that, and it was very interesting,” he told his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, in an interview on her Fox News show.

Late Sunday, Trump stressed on Truth Social that the proposed deal “states, very clearly, that Iran will not have a Nuclear Weapon”.

Tehran, however, has previously cast doubt on Trump’s assertions, and the sides remain far apart on key issues.

“We will not approve any agreement until we are certain that the rights of the Iranian people have been upheld,” Iran’s top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a video broadcast on state television.

According to the Tasnim news agency, exchanges on the text “are ongoing, with both parties regularly proposing amendments”.