India, June 12 -- Pope Leo XIV travelled to a once-notorious epicentre of the European migration debate on Thursday, challenging countries to uphold migrants' rights while shaming those leaders, including Christians, who turn them away with indifference.

Leo issued an impassioned plea to recognise the dignity of migrants from the port of Arguineguin, in the Canary Islands. In 2020, the port was dubbed "dock of shame" because of the squalid conditions migrants were forced to live in for months during a spike in arrivals.

"Human dignity has no passport and does not lose its value when crossing a border," Leo said, with rescue ships docked behind him and a simple wooden cross made from a shipwrecked migrant boat nearby.

Leo is spending th...