La Sagrada Familia, una visita obligada, y el Papa León XIV
The Sagrada Familia, a must-see, and Pope Leo XIV
It has been a long wait but 144 years after work began, Pope Leo XIV has blessed the recently completed central tower of Antoni Gaudí’s Sagrada Família church in the presence of members of the Spanish royal family, the prime minister and hundreds of bishops.
With the completion of the Jesus Christ tower, the tallest of 18 in the temple, the basilica has reached its full height of 172.5 metres. It is now not only the world’s tallest church but Barcelona’s tallest building. It was consecrated in 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI.
After a solemn Mass, the Pope, speaking in Spanish and Catalan, said that, more than a monument, “this basilica is a work in progress, which reminds us that the path that Christ has shown us is a journey that never ends.
Wednesday marks the centenary of the death of Gaudí, described by his biographer Gijs Van Hensbergen as “a man with a medieval soul and an avant-garde mind”.
Often known as God’s architect, Gaudí dedicated the last 12 years of his life to work on the Sagrada Família.
At a time when many in Barcelona were turning away from religion, Gaudí said he wanted to create a church for everyone, “a bible in stone”, hence the depiction of local people and scenes from everyday life among more conventional religious images.
According to the industrial historian James Douet, “the Sagrada Família was conceived to bring Barcelona’s disaffected industrial working classes back to Catholic beliefs, to turn them away from the anarchist violence and anti-clerical hostility that had become characteristic of the city, and in some way to expiate or atone for the sinfulness of its inhabitants”.
Blessing the towers was the last stop in Leo’s busy Barcelona schedule that has included an audience with the Catalan president, Salvador Illa, a visit to a high-security prison, saying the rosary at the monastery at Montserrat and a plea for Catalan unity delivered in Spanish and Catalan.
Although the Sagrada Família has reached its full height, completion of the Glory facade of the main entrance is still a decade away, and then there’s the construction of the contentious grand stairway – which would entail rehousing between 1,000 and 10,000 people, depending on which plan is implemented.
The dispute over whether what we see today has anything to do with what Gaudí intended is bound to rumble on. As long ago as 1965 a group of artists and architects, among them Le Corbusier, Ricardo Bofill and Joan Miró, said work on the basilica should stop, citing “the mediocrity of the promoters who are using Gaudí to make their mark to the detriment of the original work”.
However, Jordi Faulí, the architect charged with completing the work, says Gaudí understood that only a small part of the temple would be built in his lifetime and left detailed drawings and instructions that – although several were subsequently lost or destroyed – are enough to ensure that his successors can realise his vision.
The question of Gaudí’s beatification remains. Last year Pope Francis authorised a decree declaring the architect “venerable”, an early step on the road to being canonised by the Catholic church.
The Sagrada Família is visited by about 5 million people a year. If Gaudí is beatified it could become a place of pilgrimage as well as a tourist destination.
