That the Pope comes personally to Barcelona and has the tower of Jesus Christ of the Sagrada Família blessed in Spanish only has one explanation: the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE) is Spanish first and then episcopal.
Even more: the blessing of the basilica's summit will take place on the centenary of Antoni Gaudí's death. Doing it in Spanish is not only a disregard for the country's language, but also for the memory of a universal architect who always spoke in Catalan, even to King Alfonso XIII, in 1904, during a royal visit to the temple, which at the time was little more than the crypt. Gaudí was insulted by the police on September 11, 1924, when he was entering the church of Sant Just i Pastor to hear mass in memory of those who fell in the siege of Barcelona in 1714. The chronicles of the time reported:
–Your profession obliges you to speak in Spanish –the policeman told him.
–The profession of architect obliges me to pay taxes, and I already do, but not to stop speaking my language.
–If you weren't so old I'd break your face, you scoundrel, you pig.
The organizers of the trip – the CEE – wanted to ensure that the most globally televised moment of the trip would be in Spanish. This zeal is not new: it has always been there. One only needs to recall the regrettable sequence of Pope Francis being surprised that the blessing in Rome of a Madonna of Montserrat had to be done in Spanish (“¿No tiene que ser en catalán?”).
The corporate communication of the Sagrada Família is done in several languages, but the first is always Catalan, as it should be. Can the organizers of the trip to Catalonia tune into the historical significance of the moment and the Catalan identity of the architect who will be honored that day? They still have time to prevent the Pope from being out of place on such a solemn day.
