BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Pope Leo XIV is honoring two of Barcelona’s most sacred and beautiful monuments Wednesday with a noontime prayer at a mountain-top abbey and an evening Mass at the famed Sagrada Familia Basilica on the centenary of the death of its architect, Antoni Gaudí.
Leo opened his day by visiting inmates at a Barcelona prison, keeping up a tradition of Pope Francis, who used his foreign trips to minister to those who can’t join in the
public celebrations when a pope comes to town. He told the inmates that their mistakes don't define them and that "the past does not condemn the future, but rather offers us the possibility of changing our decisions and choices.”
Leo is in Spain on a weeklong visit that has highlighted how the country of 50 million, which experienced a religious crisis after its 20th-century dictatorship ended, still has plenty of faithful Catholics who have t urned out in droves to welcome the American pope.
Leo will honor their centuries-old tradition of popular piety by praying at Montserrat, a mountain complex outside the city that is dear to many Catalanas. The complex, which includes an 11th-century Benedictine abbey and a 16th-century basilica, is revered for its Black Madonna statue and is home to a boy's choir that has existed since the 13th century and is Europe's oldest.
The highlight of Leo’s visit was expected to be his Mass on Wednesday evening back in town at Sagrada Familia. The Mass commemorates the 100th anniversary of the death of its designer, Gaudí, who died at age 73 three days after he was hit by a tram.
A century after construction began during the pontificate of Leo’s namesake, Pope Leo XIII, the basilica has become one of the world’s most visited but unfinished monuments, annually drawing upward of 5 million visitors a year.
Gaudí, the famed Catalan architect who is on the path to possible sainthood, spent four decades designing and building the temple as the summary of the Christian faith carved in stone. The most important stories of Jesus’ life, the Nativity and Passion, are etched into the basilica’s east and west façades. A third façade facing south, the Glory, will serve as the basilica’s main entrance when finished.
The temple is an architectural and geometrical masterpiece inside and out, a celebration in form and symbol of Christianity and God’s creation through stone and light, based on the architectural tradition of Byzantine and Gothic churches.
A total of 18 sandcastle spires rise up from the top and pierce Barcelona’s skyline: 12 to symbolize Christ’s 12 apostles, four for each of the four Evangelists who recorded Christ’s life in the Gospels, one topped with a star over the apse honoring the Virgin Mary and, tallest among them, the Tower of Jesus Christ.
When the final Christ tower was finished last year at a height of 172.5 meters (564 feet), it made Sagrada Familia the world’s tallest church. Leo will formally consecrate the tower Wednesday night.
The cross-shaped interior, with the altar at the apse, is an homage to light and nature. Treelike columns soar to the sky, colored by constantly changing light filtered through stained glass windows like the sun poking through leaves in a forest.
“Nature is my teacher,” Gaudí once said. “Everything comes from the great book of nature, always open that we must read.”
Historian Mònica Santín, who leads tours of the basilica, said that in designing Sagrada Familia, Gaudí was essentially guided by two books: the Gospels and nature.
“The way he lets in the natural light is also an invitation to the Christian mystery,” she said, citing the three facades depicting Christ’s birth, death and glory.
“And when you enter inside, it is all light,” Santín said. “What is that the symbol of? We can’t see God, but we perceive his light all around us. I think that is how you can read this message, and it is fascinating.”
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