BARCELONA, Spain (RNS) — Pope Leo XIV and Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny met privately on Monday (June 8) at the Bernabéu stadium in Madrid, where 80,000 Catholics from Spanish dioceses had gathered to see the pope.
Bad Bunny attended a portion of the papal event from a booth in the stadium, organizers said. During their brief meeting, they exchanged a few words and took photos, according to the Vatican. Bad Bunny was accompanied by a few friends and family members.
The Vatican confirmed the meeting but did not offer further details or images of the encounter.
A meeting between the two had been rumored for weeks. Pope Leo is in Spain for a weeklong trip to the country and spent the first four days in Madrid, where Bad Bunny is performing.
Cardinal José Cobo Cano, the archbishop of Madrid, had said that a meeting between them would be an opportunity to “build bridges,” adding that such things are kept “very secret” and that “surprises are surprises.”
The spokesperson for the archdiocese, Sara de la Torre, had confirmed in an interview with a small group of reporters in Madrid, including Religion News Service, that Bad Bunny expressed interest in meeting the pope.
“It’s not impossible to think that here will be where Pope Leo and Bad Bunny will cross paths,” said Marta Rivera de la Cruz, the delegate for tourism of the city of Madrid.
Initially, city officials hinted at a possibility of creating a video link between Leo’s meeting with young people at Plaza de Cibeles on Saturday and Bad Bunny’s concert at the nearby Riyadh Air Metropolitano Stadium the same evening. But the meeting didn’t occur.
Aboard the papal plane, Pope Leo recognized that in Madrid he would be competing with Bad Bunny for the attention of young people. “If they are confronted with the question, do they want to see Bad Bunny or do they want to see the pope, I think many will see Bad Bunny,” Leo said. “But I think there will also be a few here to see the pope. And that says something.”
Leo filled stadiums and streets during his visit to Madrid, with 1.5 million people gathering for the Mass and Eucharistic procession on Sunday. Bad Bunny sold over 600,000 tickets for his concerts in Madrid and Barcelona.
Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, was raised in Puerto Rico by observant Catholics and sang in the church choir until the age of 13. He drew away from the faith as an adult and in a 2024 interview said: “I don’t pray myself, but I know that my mother, my grandmother, and my aunt do it for me.”
In 2023, Bad Bunny released a song titled “Baticano,” a play on the word Vatican, which mixes Catholic imagery with sexual liberation.
This is a developing story.