‘Father, give me a hug, I’m alive’: A priest’s testimony of the train collision in Spain
Father José Miguel Fernández, parish priest of Urda, went to the site of Spain’s deadly train collision to accompany injured passengers trapped in the wreckage. He comforted survivors with hugs and held their hands, while local volunteers transported injured people for medical care. At a sports hall converted into a field hospital, Fernández reassured relatives searching for loved ones and urged them to have hope and trust in God. Pope Leo XIV expressed sadness, offered prayers and condolences, and encouraged rescue teams assisting those affected; the preliminary death toll was 69.
4 hours ago
A Spanish parish priest described spending hours comforting injured passengers and grieving relatives after a deadly train collision on the Madrid–Seville line. His account focused on the immediate rescue effort, the distress of families seeking news, and Pope Leo XIV’s condolences and prayers.
The crash occurred on Oct. 28, 2026, near kilometer 118 of the Madrid–Seville railway line. A Renfe train traveling at about 200 km/h struck the rear cars of an Iryo train; the preliminary death toll stood at 69 as of Thursday.
Father José Miguel Fernández, parish priest of Urda, said he arrived at the scene around 11 a.m., about two hours after the collision, after receiving a call from Toledo Archbishop Francisco Cerro Chaves. He joined volunteers, including parishioners, as residents used their own vehicles to take injured people to Urda for medical care.
Fernández recalled one injured man asking him, “Father, give me a hug, I’m alive.” He said he spent the morning holding people’s hands and embracing them, and later went to Urda’s municipal sports hall, which had been converted into a field hospital.
At the hall, relatives arrived desperate for information about loved ones. Fernández said he tried to calm and reassure them, urging them to hold on to hope and trust in God. He also said he sometimes cried alongside those affected, noting that priests, too, are human and feel the suffering of others.
Pope Leo XIV said he was “deeply saddened” by the disaster. In a telegram to Archbishop Chaves, he offered prayers for the deceased, condolences to their families, comfort to those affected, and hopes for the injured’s swift recovery. He also encouraged rescue teams to continue their relief efforts and imparted his apostolic blessing.
Pastoral care and Christian solidarity amid collective suffering
Christian solidarity amid collective suffering means refusing to treat another person’s pain as someone else’s problem. The Church’s response is not only to explain suffering or offer private consolation, but to become a community of presence: listening, accompanying those who are wounded, protecting the vulnerable, and working for the common good. Christian hope does not deny grief or promise an easy remedy; it looks to Christ, who draws near to the suffering and calls his disciples to do likewise.
A crisis may affect a whole community, yet each person experiences it through particular losses, fears, relationships, and circumstances. The Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development notes that physical vulnerability, psychological distress, social isolation, and disruption of family life can reinforce one another. Because the person is embodied and relational, suffering in one area can unsettle the person as a whole.
The Church’s language of solidarity expresses this mutual responsibility. Saint Paul’s image of the body—“If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it”—means that suffering in a community calls for more than sympathy from a distance. It asks people and institutions to recognize their connection to those who are hurt and to respond in ways that help restore relationship and belonging.
Collective suffering may also make people feel powerless or alone. Christian solidarity does not erase that experience, but it challenges the belief that anyone should have to face it as though abandoned. The Dicastery describes Christian fraternity as rooted in Christ, in whom the other is welcomed as a brother or sister rather than treated as a stranger, rival, or “disposable” person.
The first pastoral response is often to be present: to listen, remain close, and make room for a person’s story or silence. This is not a lesser form of care simply because it cannot undo a loss. The Church’s guidance emphasizes that listening and patient accompaniment are essential, and that faithful friendship and fraternal closeness can offer hope to people struggling in solitude.
Pope John Paul II underlines why personal compassion cannot be replaced by services alone:
“Institutions are very important, indeed indispensable; but no institution can of itself substitute for the human heart, human understanding, human love, human initiative, when it is a question of going to meet the suffering of another.”
The point is not that institutions or organized assistance are unimportant. Rather, effective pastoral care needs both: structures that deliver help and people who encounter those affected with respect and compassion. The Church’s response should not be delegated exclusively to chaplains, health professionals, religious communities, or specialist organizations. The whole believing community has a role, according to its members’ different gifts and responsibilities.
This requires attention to people who may otherwise be overlooked: the sick, elderly, detained, poor, homeless, migrants, refugees, and others whose vulnerability can be intensified during a crisis. Solidarity means seeing those people as persons with dignity and rights, not merely as a category to be managed.
Christian solidarity is more than a feeling of unity. The Dicastery presents it as a virtue connected to justice and the common good: a commitment to the good of one’s neighbor, expressed through service rather than exploitation or indifference. Those with greater access to resources have a particular responsibility to share them with those who are weaker; those who are vulnerable remain persons with agency and legitimate rights, not passive objects of help.
In a community experiencing crisis, this principle can shape both personal and institutional responses. It calls for concrete assistance, respect for people’s rights, and attention to the conditions that deepen suffering. John Paul II warns against indifference, passivity before the causes of pain, and “cosmetic” responses that do not bring deeper healing. He also emphasizes that public institutions and social agencies have responsibilities toward people who are infirm, marginalized, detained, or otherwise suffering.
Thus pastoral care and social action belong together. Prayer, the sacraments, listening, and spiritual companionship can be integral to the Church’s response, but they do not make practical aid or justice unnecessary. Conversely, practical aid need not be spiritually empty: care for a neighbor can be an expression of Christian love, even when the immediate task is simply to protect, feed, accompany, or listen. The Dicastery describes the Church’s healing presence as expressed through word and rite, care, social engagement, and relationships.
Christian hope is not a demand that the suffering person feel cheerful, find a quick explanation, or move on before they are ready. In its reflection on psychological distress, the Church’s guidance stresses listening to people’s stories and sometimes their silence. It also recognizes that psychological suffering may require the skills of psychologists, psychiatrists, and social-care professionals, and calls for dialogue that respects their expertise while attending to the whole person.
That balance matters. Pastoral accompaniment should not be used as a substitute for appropriate professional care, nor should professional care be treated as though it makes spiritual and communal support irrelevant. The Dicastery explicitly encourages cooperation among those who assist people in distress, so that the person’s psychological and spiritual dimensions are both taken seriously.
Christian faith also refuses to call suffering good simply because it can become a place of compassion or growth. The Dicastery points instead to Christ, the Good Samaritan, who comes to the wounded and offers consolation and hope. The Cross grounds Christian fraternity not by making pain insignificant, but by showing that God does not remain distant from human suffering. The hope of the Resurrection gives Christians reason to accompany those who grieve without pretending that loss is trivial or already resolved.
A Christian community serves amid collective suffering when it learns to see, accompany, and respond together. Its care is not confined to formal ministry: the whole community can help rebuild relationships, reduce isolation, and support the vulnerable, while recognizing that each member—including a person who is sick or frail—retains dignity and a place within the community.
The practical test of solidarity is whether it reaches people in their real need. The Good Samaritan does not ask whether the wounded person belongs to his own group before helping; he draws near and cares for him. John Paul II applies that lesson to moral as well as physical suffering, describing pain as a summons to solidarity, justice, and the building of a civilization of truth and love.
Amid collective suffering, then, Christian pastoral care holds together presence, practical service, justice, professional collaboration, and hope. It grieves with those who grieve, resists the abandonment of the vulnerable, and seeks remedies that respect both human dignity and the complexity of suffering. Its witness is not that Christians can remove every wound, but that no wounded person should be treated as disposable or left to bear pain alone.