The first thing to say about the evening when the Pope blessed the tallest tower of the Sagrada Família is that we witnessed a moment for the history of the city and the country, because Gaudí's figure was recognized with a creative spectacularity (Igor Cortadellas) that was up to the monument and because the television broadcast (TV3, Paulí Subirà) was also up to the professional passion of the architect of God.

The blessing ceremony of the tallest tower of the Sagrada Família is one of those events we will never forget.

It cannot be said of Antoni Gaudí that he would have imagined in his dreams that, a century after his death, the Pope would come expressly from Rome to bless the tallest tower of the Sagrada Família. Because if Gaudí had one thing, it was that he dreamed big. Very big, the biggest, what they told him seemed impossible, to be exact. As in the first reading, Gaudí saw "a new heaven and a new earth." Today there is no temple in the contemporary world that can be compared to the Sagrada Família. And for this reason, today, at the foot of his tomb, all the authorities have gathered, the Catalan, the Spanish, and the Roman ones, led by the Holy Father who kneels there and lights a lamp. It has been a hundred years since he was buried under the title of the architect of God.

This country has extraordinary strength. I feel it as I solemnly watch Pope Leo XIV advance down the main nave of the Sagrada Familia, whose cross he will bless shortly before the cameras that will send the signal to all corners of the world.

Despite the undisputed prominence of Pope Leo XIV, the figure of the day is Antoni Gaudí. His exuberant imagination, the firmness of his judgment, his extraordinary aesthetic sense, his mastery of calculation and the use of materials, have given him a place at the forefront of the history of contemporary architecture. Joan Maragall said that Gaudí was the poet of stone.

With that gift of opportunity that has always characterized him, Adif has made an offering to the Holy Father of a gift that allows him to grasp the reality of Catalan land as soon as he steps off the plane. Exactly at the same time that Leo XIV was landing at El Prat airport, an incident at Adif's Traffic Control Center in Barcelona left the entire country without commuter trains: R1, R2, R3, R4, R8, R11, R14, R15, R16, R17, RG1, RL3, RL4, RT1, RT2. The service was interrupted for more than half an hour, until it was gradually recovered. And it fell again. Your Holiness, welcome to Catalonia.

Today at half past twelve Pope Leo XIV lands at El Prat airport and begins a stay of 36 hours in our country, packed with events: the crowd at Lluís Companys stadium this afternoon, the symbolism of the climb to Montserrat, the message of meeting with prisoners at Can Brians, and the highlight, tomorrow around 9 pm, of the blessing of the Jesus tower of the Sagrada Família, which for a few weeks has crowned the basilica at 172.5 meters above the city of Barcelona. And on Thursday morning, Leo XIV will depart for the Canary Islands.

On Tuesday the Pope lands in our country. After having talked about him so much, now it's his turn to speak. And both those who are eagerly awaiting him and those who are bothered by this deployment of public resources to receive a religious leader in a non-confessional country, it would be good for them to listen carefully, to see what he says and how he says it. That we all keep quiet for a moment, to listen first and then applaud or criticize what he has to say to the world from Catalonia, and what he has to say to us, the Catalans. What idea does he have, or what idea have they built for him between some and others (more the former than the latter, of course) of this post-Process Catalonia, more mixed than ever.

This morning, one of the most politically charged events of the Pope's trip to Spain took place. For the first time in history, a Pope has addressed the Spanish Congress and Senate in a joint session. in the Pope's trip to Spain. For the first time in history, a Pope has addressed the Spanish Congress and Senate in a joint session.If I start from the end, I will tell you that his speech was met with nearly seven minutes of applause. And this, considering that Leo XIV today delivered the most doctrinal speech of those pronounced so far. For example, when he lamented to the legislators about the abortion and euthanasia laws:

These days when the Mossos are watching the sewers, they will find them very full. Of recordings, for example, like that of a former Secretary of State for Security, Francisco Martínez, who admits to the former PSOE fixer, Leire Díez, that the story of Xavier Trias's account in Andorra was false, invented by a policeman and leaked by the “number 1 leaker, you can imagine who it is. Jorge [Fernández Díaz], he was crazy about leaking [...] she did it talking to the pedrojotas”. They, who wanted to be like Bernstein and Woodward bringing down a president, were not, in reality, more than obedient printers of a minister's toxic merchandise. All for the homeland and for the publishing business, of course; nothing for the truth or for the rule of law. What must the very devout former minister have thought when he heard the Pope saying that “no one can kneel before God and despise his brother”?While Leo XIV was preparing these words, Pedro Sánchez (probably “PS” in the plumber's papers) escaped to Primavera Sound. When they can no longer bear the Madrid that wants to kill them, they take refuge in Catalonia and fill us with clichés: “A way to show the world a Barcelona and a Spain that are open, diverse, and full of energy. [...] Its international success speaks of a plural society that understands culture as a space for meeting, coexistence, and freedom”. It’s been years since we’ve been like this. And we would be even more so if we hadn't had to carry the dirty war and the premeditated disinterest of a useless state that can’t even run its trains on time, a drain of energies and resources, which from time to time uses the brush that Tarradellas spoke of.

There is only one positive side from which to look at the conflict between teachers and the Department of Education: it can finally put teaching at the center of the country's concerns.We are not facing another labor conflict, but rather the explosion of corporate discontent resulting from persistent social unrest that has settled in schools. A teacher told me, with her spirits crushed: “Teachers have to face very powerful demands without the corresponding resources. No one dares to say it because it seems like you are attacking inclusive education, but when you have children with behavioral disorders in the same classroom and students who don't understand you at all because they have just arrived, or you know that on the days you go on strike there are children who might miss a hot meal, you feel very unhappy”.For years now, the Catalan school system has been functioning with alarm bells ringing, and precisely for this reason it would be good for everyone to find the right tone. Starting with the Government, which cannot confuse a salary increase with empathy; but continuing with the opposition, because the three largest parties in Parliament have or have had governing responsibilities. And with the unions, which run the risk of losing the social support that the protests initially counted on. It would be the appropriate time to seek a great national agreement. And for this, leadership, courage to commit, and energy are needed to overcome the situation and get out of the loop of mistrust, errors, and complacency. Not many months ago, I wrote here – speaking of teachers, doctors, farmers, and mobility – that we were in national emergency. And this type of emergency can only be overcome with the effort and will of everyone.

Teachers and professors rejected the agreement between the unions and the Department of Education and the strikes will continue. In fact, this morning, a group of teachers occupied the building of the territorial services of the department in the Zona Franca of Barcelona, in the first of the mobilizations that will continue from here until the end of the school year. All of this is very bad news because everything that interrupts the daily life of the school ends up harming the students' education. And with a child poverty rate (under 18 years old) of more than 30%, if school fails, almost everything fails. Consider that there are thousands of Catalan children who, besides learning, go to school to eat a hot meal.A 65% of teachers who participated in the consultation (which was 60% of the total staff) voted against the agreement reached by the majority unions and the Government. Therefore, the responsibilities for the situation are widely distributed, between the Government and the unions.To begin with, the Government made a complete mistake the day it signed an agreement with UGT and Comissions, which are not the majority unions, as if to suggest that the teachers' protests had already ended or no longer had any reason to continue. That was an almost reckless error, because it angered the teachers even more. And USTEC, which later signed an improved and expanded agreement, has now been disavowed by its own people. In other words, as Murphy's Law states, if something can go wrong, it will go wrong, and today we are in an unknown situation, and in a conflict whose end is not in sight.And for that very reason, it would now be very important not to make any more mistakes so that we don't all get hurt any further. Because look, we have problems in this country (as in all countries in the world), but that of education is the most serious problem that Catalonia has. The most serious. Because it affects the present and the future of the country, it affects millions of people, in their training, their critical thinking, their possibilities for personal development, their professional future…Not being wrong means the direct involvement of the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa. It means that the opposition should be very selective in its wear and tear on the Government and that we should all try to reach agreements for the country. Because the person responsible for the current situation is the current government, with Councillor Niubó at the helm. But that schools in Catalonia are not doing well is not new. There are responsibilities of all the parties that have governed in the deterioration. We are facing the deep malaise of an education system in emergency and I fear, I notice, how would I put it... that we are facing it with old negotiation categories from the government as an employer and the unions, but that no one with authority is bringing wills together to define the problem, much less the solutions.

In what we call a "polarized" society, the last great trench separating sides is age: it's about pitting older people against younger people. Boomers versus zoomers (which extends to the division between those who will inherit something and those who will inherit nothing). It's a bitter debate, going beyond the classic "when I was young" or "in my day." Some spread generational resentment so that young people see older people as the privileged ones in history, with their pension, their paid-off apartment, and their second home, and older people see young people as a glass generation that complains about everything, commits to nothing, and shatters at the slightest breeze.

Today I was talking to an important businessman, very well politically connected, who these days has attended the Cercle d’Economia conference and who the day before yesterday heard Feijóo and yesterday heard Sánchez and he told me that both interventions had seemed to him like something to cry about.Feijóo's by weak, by mediated by Aznar and Ayuso, without his own thought, without knowing how to oppose Sánchez nor, much less, generate enthusiasm.And regarding Sánchez, it was said that, although he knows how to navigate better and speaks to a Catalan audience in terms that are understood here and are even accepted much better than Feijóo's, he is a politician who now only lives for his political survival. Is it because he is hooked on power? Not only that: because he knows that the day he ceases to be president, he has a high chance of ending up prosecuted and in prison. And so, as an exercise in survival, we must understand the incredible announcement that he will present budgets for 2027. Has he not been able to approve this year's budget, and before the elections, will he have the votes to push through the accounts? Sánchez is the first to know that it doesn't sound credible at all. Now, he has a great ability to turn things around. You already know that he, who before an election promised that he would bring Puigdemont arrested, approved pardons after the elections. And yesterday he said that amnesty was good... for the PP!Pedro Sánchez: “Although it may seem unbelievable, there is explicit recognition from the head of the opposition and the People's Party to a political actor, in this case Junts per Catalunya, whom they did not recognize until very recently. I think this is good news. Truly, I don't say this as a provocation. Because, effectively, the pardons, the measures of grace, and also this amnesty law, aim to recover something that one of the main analysts of La Vanguardia said at the time, after the amnesty: “We are all here now”. Well, I think this is a very important point to make our democracy a much stronger system and, why not?, in a future where the Spanish right can once again find common ground, in terms of political understanding, with the Catalan right and also with the Basque right”.As a theory it has its logic. In the real world, it doesn't work. The PP knows that an understanding with Junts would boost Vox's vote. Apart from the fact that the PP lives and has lived by going against the amnesty.But the most amazing thing, this businessman told me, is that all this, Sánchez was saying it just when it became known that the Civil Guard had concluded that Santos Cerdán and Leire Díez wanted to protect Sánchez's interests and they set up a plot to influence legal cases that had been opened against the PSOE. In other words, Cerdán would be the leader of a plot to save Sánchez, which has led Feijóo to say that the PSOE will end up convicted of criminal organization.This is all a disaster. It has splashed the PSC, and that is why yesterday President Illa said in the control session of the Parliament that his party is the PSC (not the PSOE).Look, all this mess holds up because Spain's big economic figures hold up, the level of tax collection is historic (that's why we can afford to have the price of gasoline subsidized) but never let the economy falter, this will be a social disaster (there is already a lot of poverty). And so here we are, hoping the Pope comes, for the World Cup and holidays to start. Speaking of the Pope, I am aware that from the conversations among those who can do something about it, it is understood that the blessing of the Jesus Christ tower will be in Catalan and Spanish. And that tomorrow a welcome text to Leo XIV will be published in two Italian newspapers and two Spanish newspapers, signed by five presidents of the Generalitat and five presidents of the Parliament. And by Barça, among other personalities and institutions. A text without controversy, positive, which will explain to the Pope that he will come to a country called Catalonia.

A national police officer shoves and throws to the ground a person who was peacefully protesting in Valencia. He does so like a bad policeman, with disproportionate force for the situation, which was a protest by teachers who were going to block a street's traffic. A bad policeman and a bad person: he makes her fall like a coward, from behind, without the woman being able to see him coming, and from the blow he delivers, he breaks her nose when the woman hits the ground with her face. But even more outrageous is the response of the police unions to the Spanish government delegate, Pilar Bernabé: “You will not investigate anything [...]. You already assume someone's guilt [...]. If you go out to block streets, you expose yourself to being kicked out.” In reality, there is not much to investigate, because the policeman's guilt is demonstrated in the video. And it is one thing to expose yourself “if you go out to block streets” and another is to have to endure the gratuitous violence of someone who feels impunity because they are uniformed.There are police officers who complain about the same thing: that the times when people saw a police officer and obeyed without a word are already history, that now people confront them and have violent attitudes, because it's not just that they no longer instill fear, but they have also lost authority. But then comes the vicious cycle: for them to be believed, the verbal and physical attitude of some officers is increasingly surly, and even more preemptively aggressive, by default, to begin by demanding respect, which only increases the distance between two worlds that barely touch or know each other anymore, such as that of citizens and that of the police, because people only see police officers passing by locked in cars and we assume they are behind the street surveillance cameras. And thus, another link between citizenship and public authorities is being severed.

Perhaps one day Feijóo will be president of the Spanish government, but for now, it doesn't seem like he's going to get there. He continues to be a gray, sad opposition leader, incapable of generating enthusiasm or hitting the right strategy, dependent on Vox's crutch. He had asked for Junts' support for a motion of no confidence, Turull brushed him off by telling him that if he wanted to talk about it, he should go to Waterloo to meet with the party's president and, of course, Feijóo had no choice but to dismiss the offer. The PP would never let him speak with Puigdemont, so, as Rajoy would say, "end of quote." But, apart from his frustrated move, Feijóo spoke at the Cercle d'Economia and said the following: "Catalonia should not continue aspiring to achieve things either by coercion or by collision, but by conviction." What a beautiful sentence, if it weren't for its great hypocrisy. I can imagine that when he talks about "collision" he is referring to the Procés and October 1st. But I wonder what Mr. Feijóo calls "coercion." Is negotiating when people's votes have given you the power to be influential "coercion?" And what conviction can be displayed when nothing that Catalonia proposes is acceptable in principle? We only need to see the rejection by the autonomies governed by the PP to accept the financing model proposed by Esquerra that benefits them all because the Spanish government will put billions of euros more into it.

On the evening of the inauguration of the Barcelona Olympic Games, the American journalist broadcasting the ceremony for NBC warned viewers (with great suspense, which allowed them to eke out a few more minutes of audience) that the last time the King of Spain had entered that stadium's box he had been met with a good booing and that everyone was waiting to see what was about to happen. He was referring to the re-inauguration of the Montjuïc Stadium in 1989, when the Freedom for Catalonia group made it clear that either the Games were also in Catalan or there would be noise. That afternoon in 1992, viewers saw Joan Carles de Borbó entering to the chords of Els segadors, followed by those of the Marxa reial, amidst the audience's applause. After crossed threats, the Olympic pax avoided linguistic conflict, to the point that Catalan became an official language of those Games.

The PP has found itself trapped in its own logic: if the situation in Spain is so dire, what was the point of patiently waiting for the miracle that Sánchez would call early elections, a miracle they knew wouldn't happen? And they have decided to go on the offensive: Feijóo, who is in Barcelona today at an event organized by the Cercle d'Economia, has offered Junts and PNB a government without Vox to go to the polls. In other words, he is asking the PNB and Junts to vote for him to be president, and immediately, Feijóo calls elections as president of a government in which there would be no Vox minister. The PNB is not interested in the operation. Basque nationalist left-wing parties hinder him, and he cannot openly align with the PP, at least not so explicitly.

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.

Today, June 1, marks eight years since Sánchez has been president of the Spanish government thanks to the motion of no confidence he won against Rajoy. It was the first time a candidate reached the presidency through such a vote.Eight years later we have had the pardons, the amnesty still not completed because the Supreme Court is granting extensions, the demobilized independence movement, Commuter Rail by bus, Illa as President of the Generalitat, an unevenly distributed economic growth, the difficulty, not to say impossibility, of finding a flat, and very strained public services.Without going any further, Catalan doctors are called upon not to do any more overtime, under the eloquent slogan Not one more minute, because they don't finish the work they have and the on-call shifts have already turned days into three eight-hour shifts. Doctors want a response from the administration, like the one teachers have already received, who reached an agreement with the Department of Education this past weekend. This agreement will be submitted for a vote by teachers until Thursday. At the risk of being wrong, I believe that teachers have achieved a good part of what they were asking for, the strike has pushed teachers' pockets to the limit and families' patience, and therefore, the most logical thing would be for teachers to vote yes to an agreement reached by unions that did not settle for the first agreement signed by UGT and CCOO. The minister Niubó said this morning that a "no" would lead to the chaos of the education system. With this reality in the streets, political power continues in its own world.Sánchez, who will still take three weeks to explain himself in Congress, is betting everything on the Pope's visit, which will arrive this Saturday in Madrid, the "unity" effect of the Football World Cup, the August holidays and reaching autumn and having 2027 within reach. He himself says it: “The tricksters with their maneuvers, and we to govern until 2027 and beyond, whatever the Spanish want” “Until 2027 and beyond” sounds like it’s from the astronaut of lawfare, will not be new to them. In this analysis, we already told them weeks ago that the Spanish government not only wants to hold on until 2027, but they are also considering re-investing Sánchez.And the one who has already tied his destiny to that of Sánchez is Illa. At an event yesterday in Tarragona, he said, in Spanish so that the Spanish TV channels could broadcast it without subtitles and Sánchez would not be alone, that Sánchez was a “moral benchmark”.