‘Listening centers’ planned for Pope Leo Spain visit
Organizers say listening centers are not meant to replace confessionals, which will not be installed at a papal youth event
Confessionals will not be set up during a youth prayer vigil and other events of Pope Leo’s trip to Spain next month, while “listening centers” will be available for young people who wish to speak with lay pastoral workers dispatched as “listening agents.”
But a spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Madrid, which is organizing the visit, told The Pillar that the listening centers are not meant to replace confession, which is available in the city’s parishes and churches.
Meanwhile, sources close to the trip’s planning told The Pillar that some organizers had proposed installing confessionals, but the idea failed to gain traction among archdiocesan planners.
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In a May 19 press conference, Madrid’s archdiocesan communications director Sara de la Torre said that the listening centers were thought of especially for “young people, who will be received by a group of listening agents prepared especially for this task.”
De la Torre told The Pillar May 19 that the listening centers do not diminish the need for the sacrament of confession, but are meant to serve as a complement.
“Thankfully in Madrid we have 476 parishes in which people can receive the sacrament of reconciliation and that will be available for all people who want to make a confession. There’s a church in Madrid in almost every other square.”
“The listening spaces don’t substitute confessionals; they go hand in hand. Nothing is comparable to the sacrament of confession. It’s a different thing, the listening spaces are established for anyone who wants to be listened to, and wants to have a conversation,” she explained.
“It’s a different thing,” De la Torre emphasized.
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Dedicated spaces for confession have become a regular feature of many large, public papal events, especially World Youth Days.
But De la Torre said the experience of a World Youth Day is different from that of a papal trip.
“It’s true that at the World Youth Day in Lisbon a ‘city of joy’ was organized in which hundreds of confessionals were established, but [World Youth Day] is a different thing, it’s a four-day event with some previous days of preparation, in which pilgrims had already arrived [before papal events]. This is a concrete trip, with a specific activity for young people, which is a prayer vigil.”
“Parishes will do prior spiritual preparation in which a lot of confessions will be offered,” De la Torre added.
While the scale of a three-day papal trip with a single activity for young people is different than a World Youth Day, sources close to the organizing team said the absence of confessionals has been a point of contention among some organizers.
One organizer, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record, called the lack of a specific space set up for confessions during the vigil or other events a “missed opportunity.”
Several sources close to the trip’s organization told The Pillar that there had been a proposal to make the June 6 youth prayer vigil at Madrid’s Plaza de Lima a “day of reconciliation,” at which hundreds of priests would be available to hear confessions simultaneously.
The idea was later discarded, with sources saying that some members of the organizing committee said confessionals were not necessary for events with young people, and others argued that confession would be more appropriately offered at local parishes ahead of the papal event. Some organizers argued, sources said, that it would be too much to ask priests to spend the evening hearing confessions when they would also take part the next day in a large Mass with Pope Leo on the feast of Corpus Christi.
The listening centers are an initiative launched in collaboration with the San Camilo Center for the Humanization of Healthcare.
The idea behind the listening centers is “to begin a process of accompaniment” for young people “that can help them with whatever needs they may have at that moment,” De la Torre said in the press conference.
The listening centers echo a similar initiative started in Saint Peter’s Basilica in September 2025, in which a listening room was built to offer a space where pilgrims and tourists could “come to be heard,” Msgr. Orazio Pepe, secretary of the Fabric of Saint Peter, said in an interview.
“There’s a religious brother, a religious sister, and people generally come to express what they carry inside. And it’s open to everyone: pilgrims, people of other religions, even those who no longer believe or are struggling in their life of faith,” Pepe added.
“This is not a confessional, but rather a different kind of service. It’s open to non-Catholics or those who no longer practice their faith. The project is part of the Catholic Church’s Holy Year and aims to be a sign of openness and closeness,” Pepe added.
For her part, De la Torre said in the press conference Tuesday that the archdiocese will hold an event at the Almudena Cathedral of Madrid on June 5, the day before the pope arrives, in which the sacrament of confession will be offered to all participants.
That event will be much smaller, as the Almudena Cathedral can hold some 2,000 people, while hundreds of thousands are expected to attend the prayer vigil and the Corpus Christi Mass with Pope Leo XIV.
Alfa y Omega, the Archdiocese of Madrid’s magazine, also reported on May 18 some details of the procession of Corpus Christi in Madrid with Pope Leo.
Citing logistical constraints, organizers said the procession will be relatively short, running from the altar at the foot of Madrid’s city hall to the Church of St. Joseph, before returning to the city hall — about 330 yards each way.
After the procession, Pope Leo will impart a solemn benediction with the Eucharist to participants.
Confessionals are Christian.
“Listening Centers” are the fruit of moralistic therapeutic deism.
Why not offer both confession and listening centers (although I find myself a little skeptical about this idea)? The resistance to offering confession seems odd to me.