In Barcelona, it has been two intense days. The poor Pope, after the Canary Islands excursion with the final failure of the broken plane (what a ridiculous, Iberia airline!), looked tired, and I thought he was limping a bit. But the job of a pope involves these things. In Spain, which was the excuse so that the papal visit was not solely Catalan and Gaudí-related, they did everything they could to make a good impression. The king and queen – the queen with the white privilege – and all the fuss of bishops and cardinals. In Catalonia, it was a bit different, because here we have a bit more good taste and know how to do things a bit better. In fact, the Catalan visit had two main stages: Montserrat and the Sagrada Família. What surprised me was that the Montserrat event consisted of praying the rosary. Such an unliturgical prayer! But Montserrat is no longer what it was, even though the choir offered a spectacle worthy of the abbey's best times, the glorious times of Abbot Escarré. The choir appeared full: bishops and cardinals and singers, instead of monks; because, of monks, there are fewer and fewer every day...

The controversial expulsion of 600 singers from the blessing ceremony of the Jesus tower of the Sagrada Família continues to cause repercussions and this Wednesday reached Congress. The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, justified the expulsion of some of the choirs during the Pope's ceremony in Antoni Gaudí's basilica on grounds of "security" and congratulated the Mossos d'Esquadra and the National Police for their actions.

The scene in which 600 singers were expelled from the Sagrada Família during the blessing ceremony of the cross of the Tower of Jesus by Pope Leo XIV began with the warning of some of the choir members to the Episcopal Conference (CEE). This was revealed by the president of the CEE, Luis Argüello, at the press conference summarizing the Pope's visit to the State.

In the eighties of the last century, being naturally sociable and living in the US, I had a story to tell about where I came from. It included two observations about Barcelona that are shocking today. One was the ethnic homogeneity of the population. During a sabbatical in Barcelona in '81, an Indian student I was supervising for his doctoral thesis visited me. He was Sikh and, therefore, covered his head with a turban. When he went out on the street, people stared at him, and someone even asked him where he had gotten a bed of nails to sleep on. The other, which will be the focus of this article, was that, referring to the phenomenon of tourism in Catalonia, I noted that it extended along the entire Catalan coast except in Barcelona, where it was absent. Tourists avoided it with almost surgical precision.

Thirty-four years later, Barcelona is once again dazzling the world while Madrid sees that three decades of turbo-capitalism and concentration of resources and power have not served it to shorten distances with the Catalan capital when it comes to achieving a global impact like that of 1992. Thirty-four years later, Madrid has not only not had the Olympic Games, but has had to see how the blessing ceremony of the tower of Jesus of the Sagrada Família by Leo XIV has taken all the praise and headlines in the world press and left the visit of the Pope himself to the Spanish capital a few days earlier in an absolute second place. And this without going into comparing the quality of what has been seen in Catalonia in recent days (cathedral, Lluís Companys stadium, Brians, Montserrat and Sant Agustí) with the events in Madrid, particularly the performances with an evangelistic air at the Santiago Bernabéu.

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

3Cat's broadcast of the consecration of the Jesus tower of the Sagrada Família this Wednesday left many viewers stunned. Who is behind this television spectacle more akin to cinema? The realization of the event was handled by Paulí Subirà, who has a very long professional career in this field. Subirà already directed the television coverage of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the Sagrada Família in 2010 and has also been in charge of programs such as La nit al dia, FAQS and the electoral specials, among many other productions.

Some 600 members of various choirs who were due to participate this Wednesday in the mass and the act of blessing the cross of the tower of Jesus of the Sagrada FamiliaWhile they were singing the Virolai, however, they observed "a lot of secret police" climbing up to where they were. "I thought it was just the general protocol for the Pope and that was it," admits one of the affected singers. Before they had even finished singing the hymn to the Virgin of Montserrat, the officers began to make them come down from the choir lofts and led them outside.

More than 140 years after the laying of the first stone, even today, what is considered Antoni Gaudí's masterpiece continues to take shape. In the final years of his prolific career, he poured all his efforts into building a temple that has today become Barcelona's main tourist attraction. Thousands of people visit it every year, and there seems to be a widespread consensus on its architectural and cultural value. However, the building has not been without controversy, starting with the fact that some question whether what we see today is what Gaudí would have done.

The trajectory of Ceràmica Cumella is profoundly marked by the legacy of Antoni Gaudí: Toni Cumella (Granollers, 1951) has worked on the restorations of Parc Güell, the Teresianes school, and Casa Batlló. And for almost twenty years he has been working for the Sagrada Família: the tower of Jesus, which Pope Leo XIV inaugurates this Wednesday, is the latest major milestone, shared with his son Guillem, representing the fifth generation of ceramists. Together, father and son have taken on commissions that are only suitable for very expert experts.

The crowning of the cross of the Jesus tower of the Sagrada Família, which the Pope will consecrate on the 10th, has paved the way for the installation inside of the lamb by the Italian artist Andrea Mastrovito (Bergamo, 1978). Based between his hometown and New York, Mastrovito is increasingly recognized for how he has brought his drawings into other fields such as installations, animated film, as is the case with Nysferatu – Symphony of a century, and public works, often of a sacred nature.

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:

On April 14, 2025, just one week before his death, Pope Francis proclaimed Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) a "venerable servant of God," a title with which the Catholic Church recognizes the heroic virtues of men and women, and which constitutes the first step towards sainthood within the long process of beatification and canonization. A historic decision that came after an initiative launched in the 90s by José Manuel Almuzara dedicated to disseminating the figure of the one known as the "architect of God.

Of the Sagrada Família, which these days is the protagonist because the Pope will commemorate the centenary of Antoni Gaudí's death on the 10th, many books have been written. Almost everything is known or studied, but there are some curiosities that perhaps not everyone knows about the great temple that has now become the most emblematic image of Barcelona. We have selected 33, a symbolic number that appears in the magic square of the Passion facade, in which, by cheating a little, all the numbers in the grid, in any row, column, and diagonal, add up to 33, which is Christ's supposed age when he died.

No is expected that the future chapel of Penance – one of the spaces of the Sagrada Família still pending construction – will have any tribute to the neighbors of the temple, but by God that for some of the inhabitants of the neighborhood the coexistence with the basilica has become a sacrifice. Especially in recent years. The visit of Benedict XVI in 2010 – the last by a pope to Barcelona – triggered global interest in the work of Antoni Gaudí. Among the neighbors there is fear that the broadcast worldwide of the blessing of the tower of Jesus that Pope Leo XIV will perform on Wednesday, will cause a similar explosion.

At the Sagrada Família, the centenary of Antoni Gaudí's death will be commemorated by the inauguration and blessing of the Jesus tower by Pope Leo XIV. As soon as the technicians removed the scaffolding, the four-armed cross that crowns it, at 172.5 meters high, became a global icon. Currently, the construction of the entire temple is 80% complete, and these will be the next architectural milestones. The forecast is that the works will be finished around the year 2035.

La Sagrada Família is a Catholic church, a monument, and a tourist attraction. But it is also one of the economic engines of the city of Barcelona, both for the business it indirectly generates, for example through tourism, and also for its direct business volume, for the investments it makes, and for the jobs it creates. The figures are clear: in 2025, the basilica closed with generated income of 134.5 million euros. A turnover that has been growing in recent years.

We interview the delegate president of the Sagrada Família Construction Board Foundation, Esteve Camps, a few days before Pope Leo XIV visits the temple to mark the centenary of Antoni Gaudí's death.

That the Sagrada Família has a strong political charge in itself has been demonstrated this very week by the controversy over the use of Catalan in the blessing of the tower of Jesus by Pope Leo XIV on June 10. As the poet Joan Maragall said in 1905 in an article in the Diario de Barcelona: "The Sagrada Família is the monument of Catalan identity in Barcelona, it is the symbol of eternally ascending piety, it is the concretization in stone of the yearning for height, it is the image of the popular soul". The symbolism of Antoni Gaudí's work had a political and social message from its beginnings, not just a religious one. It connects with the unique personality of the architect, a deeply Catalanist, conservative man involved in social Catholicism.

At first glance, no one would say so, but in an industrial estate in Les Borges Blanques there is one of the key pieces of the Sagrada Família's machinery. There, piled on top of each other, are some of the stones that have made it possible for the temple to reach its roof this year with the completion of the Tower of Jesus, but also those needed to continue the work. In the capital of Les Garrigues, for almost fifteen years now, the stone that arrives from all over the world with which the basilica is being built has been stored. An open-air catalogue of the raw material with which Antoni Gaudí's great dream is made.