MINISTER for work and deputy president Yolanda Díaz has just returned from a private audience with the Pope in which she talked about her plans for Spain's equality law development.
Visiting in a professional capacity, Yolanda, from the left-wing independent party Podemos – in coalition with the socialists (PSOE) in national government – was accompanied by Secretary of State for employment, Joaquín Pérez Rey.
They both said the meeting was 'very emotional' and Joaquín said he feels he should be 'respectful' to the Pontiff and 'not reveal the content of the conversation' to reporters outside in Saint Peter's Square.
At the start of the visit, which lasted around 40 minutes, Yolanda presented Pope Francisco with a stole, or papal scarf, made entirely from recycled plastic, and a special edition of Folhas Novas ('New Leaves'), by Galicia poet Rosalía de Castro, the first author, and first female, to use the regional language, gallego, as a medium in literature.
Spain's government said the significance of the gifts was to appeal to Pope Francisco's passions for the environment and for migrant protection, which Yolanda Díaz shares.
The stole was hand-stitched by Carmelite nuns from Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, and the poetry book is the one that many of these nuns took with them as a souvenir of home when they emigrated to Argentina, the Pontiff's native country, in the 1960s.
Yolanda talked with Pope Francisco about the various legislation she and her government are working on to alleviate the crisis and to reframe the concept of work as a social agent that provides dignity and equality.
Spain's economy minister and second deputy president, Nadia Calviño, says she has met with the pope twice, although neither time in a private audience.
The first was in May 2019 when she took part in a sustainable development and climate change conference at the Vatican, organised by the United Nations, the Pontificate Sciences Academy and the Chilean government, and the second was via video-conference, in a seminar organised by the Vatican on ethical, financial and political challenges during the Covid crisis, which several other European experts and national government representatives took part in online.
President Pedro Sánchez (PSOE) had a private half-hour conversation with Pope Francisco in October 2020.
It is quite rare, though, for a national government's second in command, rather than leader or head of State, to meet privately with a pope in a professional capacity.
