This article explores the critical dimension of news coverage of pope Francis’s speech on refugees in market-leading newspapers from three countries — Spain, Poland and the UK — using critical discourse analysis methods. As hypothesised, it revealed bias and fallaciousness in the arguments against refugees in the tabloid press. The daily broadsheets’ news articles from the three countries expressed the same positive stance towards accommodating refugees in Europe, which was to be expected. Surprisingly, though, their argumentation was almost identical, weak and scarce, especially when compared to tabloid argumentation on the topic. None of the news articles presented the issue from the point of view of refugees. Given the influence of media discourse, this study discusses important, real-life implications of racially biased discourse on the cognitive, affective and behavioural levels.