Pope Leo blesses Barcelona’s towering architectural masterpiece

Pope Leo XIV offered his formal blessing Wednesday to the highest spire of what is now the world’s tallest church, holding Mass at the iconic Sagrada Família in Barcelona.

The event, the highlight of a weeklong trip to Spain for Leo, comes 144 years after construction on the unfinished modernist basilica began and 100 years since the death of its famous architect, Antoni Gaudí.
Standing 566 feet high and crowned with a five-story ceramic cross, the central Tower of Jesus Christ is the highest of 18 adorning the Sagrada Família, a bucket-list item for most travelers to the city in Spain’s northeastern Catalonia region.

Leo’s visit commemorates the legacy of Gaudí, whose radical, modernist designs were mocked in his lifetime but have subsequently been celebrated. Gaudí took over the construction of Sagrada Família in 1883, a year after the first cornerstone was laid during the pontificate of Leo’s namesake, Pope Leo XIII.

“We are all the living stones of this edifice,” Leo said from the altar of the basilica.

Spain’s King Felipe VI and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez were among thousands inside the Sagrada Família on Wednesday as Leo lit a candle at Gaudí’s grave and led the Mass.

His work was far from finished when Gaudí, a devout Catholic, was hit by a tram and killed in June 1926, at age 73, having devoted 43 years of his life to the basilica, which one century later is now finally inching toward completion.

Dubbed “God’s architect” for his devotion, he designed some of Spain’s most famous religious sites and tourist attractions, and he was put on the path to sainthood when Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, declared him “venerable” in recognition of his “heroic virtues” last year.

The Mass featured musicians and choirs from around Catalonia, an autonomous region known for its distinct language, culture and independent identity, where there are vocal voices in favor of independence from Spain.

The event drew a massive crowd: Local authorities said there were 9,000 people in the basilica and 120,000 outside. And there was a true sense of spectacle as lights illuminated different parts of Sagrada Família at one point during the ceremony and drones formed an image of Gaudí in the sky beside it.