Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass at the Sagrada Família in Barcelona on Wednesday, formally blessing the basilica's newly completed central tower in a ceremony timed to the centenary of the death of its architect, Antoni Gaudí. The visit marks the second leg of the pontiff's trip to Spain and one of the most symbolically loaded moments of his papacy to date.
The Tower of Jesus Christ, the tallest of the basilica's spires, was finished earlier this year after more than 140 years of construction on the church. Crowned with a five-storey ceramic cross, the tower rises 172.5 metres — about 566 feet — making the Sagrada Família the tallest church in the world.
Gaudí, often called "God's architect," devoted 43 years of his life to the basilica before he was struck by a tram and killed in June 1926 at the age of 73. The Catalan modernist was placed on the path to sainthood under Pope Francis, and church officials say a reported miracle attributed to his intercession is currently under study in Rome, raising hopes that he could be beatified during the centenary year.
Wednesday's Mass filled the basilica's forest-like nave with musicians and choirs drawn from across Catalonia. The building, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Barcelona's most visited monument, remains formally unfinished: work continues on its sculptural facades and surrounding structures even after the central tower's completion.
The Barcelona stop follows engagements in Madrid and caps a trip designed to underline the church's ties to southern Europe. For Spain, the papal visit doubles as a moment of civic celebration: the completion of the Sagrada Família's tallest tower has been treated as a national milestone a century in the making.
For the new pope, the setting offered a ready-made message about patience and continuity. The basilica begun in 1882 has outlasted war, dictatorship and decades of funding droughts, sustained largely by visitor receipts and private donations — a building, as Gaudí himself remarked, whose client "is not in a hurry."