Pope Leo XIV has sent a letter to the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, known as the Lefebvrians, asking them not to consecrate four new bishops without pontifical mandate, as planned in Switzerland this Wednesday, which would cause a schism in the Church. "I urge you to carefully consider the spiritual good of the faithful, as the schismatic act they would commit would deprive them of the lawful and, in some cases, even valid reception of the sacraments they cherish and seek for their own sanctification," writes Leo XIV. "In this spirit, and full of Christian affection – continues the pontiff –, I implore and ask you with all my heart: turn back!"

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.

An old politician once said to the one who called him president: "I am not the president. I am the person temporarily holding the presidency".Something similar happens with monarchies. Charles III has succeeded Elizabeth II. Inheriting a crown does not mean automatically inheriting the emotional bond that the previous person built over decades. The symbol remains, but it must be re-housed in the newcomer.And in the same way, because no one is saved from this, when a pope dies, it's not just one person who changes. The emotional relationship of millions of people with this position also changes.For years, the pontificate is embodied in a face, a voice, gestures, a way of greeting. At first, the new pope seems almost an intruder. Not because of him, but because he is not yet part of the collective imagination. The office is already his. The affection, not yet.This is why the visit of Leo XIV to Spain is of interest beyond religion. It can also be read from the economy of intangibles: reputation, trust, authority, legitimacy, public presence. Intangibles sustain companies and institutions.The Vatican knows it. It is one of the oldest and most sophisticated organizations in the world. It does not improvise its gestures. A papal visit combines pastoral, diplomacy, communication, and narrative. Every setting, image, photograph, and crowd around it contributes to building the narrative. The new narrative.Spain is an ideal place for a pope who is beginning to build his position. He does not come just to evangelize. He also comes to be seen. To receive warmth. To produce images of continuity. To stop being a distant figure from Rome and to gradually become a recognizable presence.Our country offers something very valuable: cultural Catholicism, street, Mediterranean emotion, and universal heritage. Madrid, Montserrat, the Sagrada Familia, or the Canary Islands are settings with an enormous symbolic charge. The Sagrada Familia, moreover, has this dual condition so useful for Rome: a temple and a global icon.Spain lives an interesting paradox. Religious practice has decreased, but the Catholic symbol is preserved. There are fewer Sunday masses, but processions, shrines, and patron saint festivals continue. This mixture allows the Pope to appear surrounded by affection without seeming trapped in the past.It would be poor to see it as a cold marketing maneuver. But it would also be naive to think that these visits are just pious displacements. In institutions of this scale, public presence builds authority. And authority needs emotion.A pope does not become "the Pope" on the day of his election. On that day he receives the office. Then another task begins: to occupy it before the eyes of the world. Spain, this week, has lent him its squares, its temples, and its crowds to begin doing so.

Goals, in football, we've seen many types. But this week, with the papal visit, we've seen some we didn't even know existed: "the Church's goals". Taking advantage of the visit of Leo XIV to the Santiago Bernabéu on Tuesday, Manolo Lama and his battle companion, Paco González, were in charge of narrating a curious spectacle. "You can really tell God is captaining this feat," said the usual commentator on Cadena COPE (the radio of the Episcopal Conference) for Real Madrid matches, as a series of balls were kicked into improvised goals set up in front of the Pope.

Pope Leo XIV concluded his apostolic journey to the Spanish state this Friday, leaving behind many political messages. The head of the Catholic Church, with more than 1.4 billion faithful worldwide according to data from the Holy See, has been increasing his geopolitical impact for months. What has he emphasized in this week's 22 interventions?

The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, is playing the immigration card to counter the right, coinciding with the moral battle waged by Leo XIV on the same issue. This Friday, the state executive received the blessing of the head of the Catholic Church for its humanitarian work with newcomers. From the Las Raíces immigrant reception center in La Laguna, Tenerife, which houses 700 arrivals from the Canary coast, the Holy Father was clear: "I appreciate the collaboration of the government, various institutions, and so many men and women of good will who make this humanitarian aid possible," he emphasized, in a speech in French so that the 250 people who could witness it would understand.

Wednesday evening saw the most apotheotic act of Pope Leo XIV's visit. The spectacle of the inauguration of the tower of Jesus was the celebration that connected most with civil society for its beauty and its link with Gaudí's architecture. Before this majestic moment, in the afternoon, public television channels delved into the events at the Sagrada Família. The broadcast on La 1 of TVE, with Pepa Bueno and Gemma Nierga, maintained a more formal tone, aware of when to speak and of the value of silence, without letting themselves be drawn into affectation. On La 2 Cat, in addition to the preliminaries with Oriol Nolis and Cristina Villanueva, they offered the ceremony with the utmost sobriety, with excellent Crisol Tuà and Anna Solé providing commentary. On TV3, the wait for the Pope's arrival with Toni Cruanyes and Núria Moliner was very well-crafted, especially the architectural content. But perhaps they wanted to do too many things at once. They exceeded themselves by dividing the screen into three and adding a graphic line that marred the image, crudely imitating Gaudí's theme. It looked like a PowerPoint template. Xavier Grasset took over with the start of the mass with an excess of rhetoric that often forgot the importance of the image and of silence. Beyond the mass, the event at the Sagrada Família connected with poetry in two moments: that of Valentina, the blind girl who explained the details of the cross of Jesus, and the moment the Pope lit a candle before Gaudí's tomb. Spirituality goes beyond sermons.The unforgettable and dazzling moment arrived with the dusk, after blessing the tower. A perfect calculation of the exact time. TV3 demonstrated its talent and quality in an excellent production. It was precise and majestic. It was as if Gaudí had foreseen the audiovisual and media potential of his great work. The fusion of light, music, and image was masterful. A show so well-crafted that it perfectly managed unforeseen events and last-minute changes. The perfect synergy with the production allowed a decisive element to finally appear that we had not yet seen since the Pope set foot in the State: mysticism. Beauty generated emotions that could be shared by citizens in a transversal way, without obliging religious convictions or the use of words. The pulses of light endowed the Sagrada Família with a soul, and the spectators, thanks to television as a privileged window, witnessed how spirituality crossed the basilica from top to bottom. Neither celebrities nor the rhetoric of experts, more old-fashioned than the Pope, are needed to move people. The use of drones with Gaudí's face contemplating his work was a symbolic way to bless the architectural epic in another way. "First love, then technique" is a message for everyone. If Gaudí were to lift his head, he would have seen the sublime hour of his work.

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.

"Dear migrants, I want to bow before your dignity. Human dignity has no passport nor does it lose value when crossing a border." With these words, Pope Leo XIV made a call this Thursday to shake consciences about immigration and shamed xenophobia from the place where the drama of immigration in Spain is experienced most intensely: the Canary Islands. In an event with immigrants from the Arguineguín pier, in Gran Canaria, also known as the "pier of shame" – where nearly 3,000 people were crammed during the pandemic – he strongly criticized Europe's "indifference" and asked for "an examination of conscience." An examination that he extended to the countries of origin and transit, regarding the conditions that drive emigration and recruitment by mafias, in a plea for international cooperation.

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

The show had not yet ended and everyone already had it clear that the blessing of the Sagrada Família's Jesus tower would be one of the images of the year. This Thursday, the front pages of the world's press certified it. As in the '92 Olympic Games, Barcelona once again showed itself splendid in a global ceremony. The day after the event, it was easy to overhear conversations everywhere about the impressive effect of the drones recreating the figure of Antoni Gaudí or the beauty of the light show. Comments that, often, oscillated between pride in the image offered and reservations about whether this could lead to an increase in tourism in the Catalan capital.

The choice of Catalan by the Pope on his visit to Montserrat is a very important gesture because of its "logic". In the monastery, there were groups of fervent people who made themselves heard a lot. The "jóvenes del Papa", who rhymed "León" with "mola mogollón" or the gentleman who shouted "¡Viva el Papa y viva la virgen!". Alongside this, the parishioner who tried a local "Visca sa santedat el Papa!", had a lot of merit, because Catalans – they know it urbi et orbi– are not so expansive.

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.

The tower of Jesus of the Sagrada Família and Catalonia are blessed as a beacon of Christendom. Pope Leo XIV, predominantly using Catalan in the homily and blessing, crowned Antoni Gaudí's masterpiece this Wednesday with the blessing of the tower of Jesus, coinciding with the centenary of the death of the "architect of God", as the pontiff defined him.

What impact will the Pope's visit leave? Undoubtedly, Leo XIV, from his position as head of state and religious leader, has impacted political and civic life. Both the right and the left have wanted to claim him. But his clear discourse of a purely social nature, in favor of welcoming immigrants, peace, and an economy at the service of people, and therefore antithetical to Trumpism and the Catalan and Spanish far-right, has especially given a boost to Pedro Sánchez's party.

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.

The visit of Pope Leo XIV to Madrid and Catalonia has turned public television into Vatican TV. And not only because of the hours they are dedicating to covering the event, but because of a treatment more akin to catechists than journalists, dragged uncritically by the show. The level of inflammation became grotesque in the pontiff's meeting with the diocesan community of Madrid at the Santiago Bernabéu. Any religious act practiced en masse in a stadium (it also applies to Barcelona's Lluís Companys) is of a disturbing industrialism that exposes the most fragile gears. The supposed recollection becomes a cathartic act of indoctrination through offerings of dubious results. In Madrid, the production brought the camera to the throat of David Bustamante, who sang with ecstatic shrieks that caused bewilderment. The most regrettable came with a kind of football choreography narrated by Manolo Lama and Paco González with a traditional passion that caused secondhand embarrassment. Through a ridiculous metaphor, they sang the supposed goals of the Church: “An open parish! Perfect attendance against loneliness! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goooal! [...] Next play, Paquito! Full dining room! No one asks where it comes from! They welcome you with a smile and make you feel at home! [...] Impeccable finish! Goal against inequality!” It is a disturbing infantilism.At Montjuïc it was not much different. The only thing that marked cultural differences were the Castellers de Vilafranca, with a tower so far from the Pope that the visual and emotional impact of this tradition was lost.It is understandable that the visit to Montserrat, perfectly carried out, was as it was. It is what befits the institution and television is limited to showing it. But the television wrapping of Tot es mou, with views of the Sagrada Família, was cloying. At TV3, broadcasts have forgotten the non-believing spectator or one disconnected from the Church. An audience, incidentally, for whom they have left few alternatives. On Wednesday morning, Helena Garcia Melero's program, imbued with a kind of celestial spirit, gradually lost its tone until it deflated. Public television should not force this transcendence. That is the job of the Church, not journalists. Even the program's team seemed dressed to go to a baptism. Melero, moved and excited, interviewed some experts with a discourse more suited to evangelization and indoctrination than to the desire to disseminate to the general public. They subjected us to an intensive and soporific course in catechism, but also very revealing. "The person who is visiting Catalonia and Barcelona, who need it so much these days, is precisely Jesus," they even told us. The banality and emptiness of the messages, typical of the most basic self-help, connect only with those who are already convinced. For the rest, good luck. There's less to go.

“You can connect to Movistar Papa2, Movistar Papa3, or Montserrat Wifi,” a journalist from Regió 7 explains to me. It’s almost eleven, all the faithful who have managed to get a spot, after the paperwork, to see the Pope in Montserrat have been in their assigned places for hours. Cordoned off – if you’ll forgive the rough word that has been used, all these days of paperwork – by fences in different areas. We, the reporters, are in a press room, in the majordomo’s building, with an imposing balcony overlooking the square, with the mountain in the background. Impossible to maintain atheism here.

The Pope has reserved the two small-format, more intimate events for the second and last day of his visit to Barcelona to meet with vulnerable groups. In the morning, he met with about eighty inmates at the Brians 1 prison, in Sant Esteve Sesrovires, before heading to the monastery of Montserrat. In the afternoon, he chose the modest church of Sant Agustí, in the heart of Barcelona's Raval, on his way to the central event of the blessing of the Sagrada Família's tower of Jesus. It was, therefore, a day marked, on the one hand, by two great symbols of Catalan spirituality and, on the other, by two points where current social problems are felt.

In Montserrat, the spiritual heart of Catalonia, Saint Ignatius of Loyola examined his sins to begin leading a life in God's service, abandoning the sword that had always accompanied him as a knight. With this reference and commending himself to La Moreneta, Pope Leo XIV made a strong plea for peace this Wednesday in a turbulent world. "May hatred give way to hope and peace," he stated from inside the basilica after the rosary prayer presided over by himself. But he also had a message in favor of immigration when he finished his speech: "Thank you, Catalonia, for having welcomed so many people from other countries, because you teach how to integrate everyone into a single family," he said from the outside, in line with what he had defended on Tuesday at the Lluís Companys Stadium.