On his second day in Barcelona, Pope Leo XIV blessed and inaugurated a recently completed tower on the city’s renowned Sagrada Familia basilica, which is now the tallest church in the world. Source: Crux.
During the Mass and blessing yesterday, the Pope called the Sagrada Familia “a visible sign of the invisible God, for whose glory its towers rise.”
By design, the papal visit and blessing ceremony coincided with the centenary of the death of the basilica’s celebrated architect Antoni Gaudí, whose cause for beatification is currently underway.
“Much more than a monument,” the pontiff said, “Basilica of the Sagrada Familia remains a work in progress today, reminding us that the Christian life is always a journey, because it is a project that God is carrying out.”
That the basilica is still incomplete “is not a flaw,” he said, rather “it bears witness to a desire” and promise “that we wish to honour with consistency” to continue building God’s kingdom on earth.
“Since we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, this work consists in our very lives, which God conceives as a masterpiece that we are to create together, and he calls us to collaborate with him,” he said.
Leo is undertaking a June 6-12 tour of Spain that began in Madrid and will also take him to the Canary Islands to reinforce his support of migrants seeking entry into Europe.
After Wednesday’s Mass, the Pope blessed the basilica’s new tower of Jesus Christ, completed earlier this year, and which was lit for the first time after its June 10 inauguration. A firework display was then held for attendees.
Leo celebrated Mass after a packed day in Barcelona that had him visiting the city’s Brians 1 prison complex and traveling to the famed mountainside abbey of Our Lady of Monserrat, where he prayed the rosary and had lunch with the Benedictine community overseeing the property.
He then held a meeting with diocesan charity and welfare organisations before celebrating Mass and inaugurating the tower of the Sagrada Familia.
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Pope Leo inaugurates new tower of Spain’s famed Sagrada Familia (By Elise Ann Allen, Crux)
