The Pope's trip to Catalonia, Catalan and Lluís Companys

In a month, on June 9th, the Pope will arrive in Catalonia, where he will spend the night, and will leave the next day. He will arrive at El Prat airport on Tuesday, June 9th, at half past twelve, and from there he will go to Barcelona Cathedral to hold a prayer. The next public stop will be at 8 p.m. at the Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium for a massive prayer vigil. According to the organization, the option of it being at Camp Nou was considered, but FC Barcelona's board of directors ruled it out because the logistics involved delaying the stadium's construction by a month. The following day, Wednesday, June 10th, the Pope will visit Brians 1 prison, in Sant Esteve Sesrovires, and from there he will go up to Montserrat, where he will lead a prayer and have lunch with the community of monks. In the afternoon he will return to Barcelona, to the church of Sant Agustí, in the Raval (the Pope is from the Augustinian order). At half past seven, the moment that will be most broadcast worldwide will arrive, the mass at the Sagrada Família, which is a television setting that never ends. At the end of the mass – it will be half past eight in the evening –, with the twilight sun, he will bless from the street the tower of Jesus Christ, crowned weeks ago and which has made the Sagrada Família the tallest temple in the world. The next day, Thursday, June 11th, he will leave for Las Palmas. Pope Robert Prevost will have arrived in Madrid on the 6th and will return to Rome from the Canary Islands on the 12th.This trip is curious because the reason for bringing him to Spain at this time is the Sagrada Família. On June 10th, it will be 100 years since Gaudí's death, and to solemnize the centenary, the Pope has agreed to go to Barcelona to bless the tower of Jesus Christ, which crowns the basilica. Thus, it is from this date and this act that the entire trip is organized. In Madrid, he will go to the Congress of Deputies, where he will deliver a speech in a joint session of the Congress and the Senate. One can imagine the interest Pedro Sánchez's government must have in the Pope giving a political speech, because he is against war, he is attacked by Trump, and he has warned the Spanish bishops not to be instrumentalized by the far-right. The trip has a very marked social component, because Leo XIV will go to a shelter for homeless people in Madrid, he will go to prison, he will go to the Raval in Barcelona, and he will end up in the Canary Islands, the entry point – often fatal – for sub-Saharan immigration into the European Union. It is a trip that Pope Francis could have made if he had not been so ill in the final years of his pontificate.  It is noticeable in the program that, apart from being very packed, it is the typical trip of the Pope to Spain, very controlled so that it is exactly that, a trip to Spain: the kings will accompany him at every step, they will receive him at the Royal Palace in Madrid, he will meet with Pedro Sánchez (a photo that Sánchez is eager to have). Yesterday, the cardinal of Barcelona, Omella, dodged the question when asked about the use of Catalan during the trip. It is the usual thing, the undisguised influence in the Vatican of the Spanish episcopate so that the distinct personality of Catalonia and its language are not perceived as merely regional. I do not believe, however, that Catalan Catholic sectors will stand idly by to counteract this new episode of surveillance of the Pope's words in Catalonia, which, frankly, at this point in history we could do without.And as everything is susceptible of worsening, the “Christian lawyers” appear to ask that the Pope not go to the Lluís Companys Stadium, because under his presidency thousands of religious men and women were killed, and they finish by saying that “it is outrageous that the Pope himself goes to a stadium that honors a murderer”. Needless to say, Companys not only did not have anyone killed, but he tried to save many people, but on July 18, 1936, and in the following months, the president of the Generalitat was absolutely overwhelmed by the armed violence of groups of anarchists and the extreme left, who were the authors of the assassinations. In short, as if the lie were not big enough, the same group asks the Pope to go to the Valley of the Fallen. The Pope's visit, therefore, has political, cultural, social, national, and security components (as the world is) of great importance and symbolism. We will follow it closely.Good morning.