144 years in the making, Barcelona’s towering Sagrada Família basilica to receive papal blessing

Pope Leo XIV is set to offer his formal blessing to the world’s tallest church on Wednesday:  Barcelona’s Sagrada Família basilica, finally nearing completion after more than 144 years of construction.

The basilica’s pièce de résistance, a towering 566-foot-tall spire, was just added in February in preparation for the pope’s visit.

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Wednesday marks 100 years since the church’s visionary architect, Antoni Gaudí, died after being hit by a tram. Pope Leo will honor the devout Catholic by consecrating the spire, known as the “Tower of Jesus Christ.”

The pope will hold Mass inside the church Wednesday evening and then bless the spire.

An architectural homage

Commissioned under Leo’s namesake, Pope Leo XIII, Sagrada Família is a testament to Christianity carved in stone and stained glass.

The church tells the story of Jesus’ life. The Nativity and the Passion are etched into the east and west facades. A third, south-facing facade is not yet finished, but when it is, it will depict the Glory and serve as the basilica’s main entrance.

Its 18 sandcastle spires also serve to tell Jesus’ story: 12 symbolize the apostles, four represent the Evangelists who recorded his life in the gospels, one topped with a star over the apse honors Jesus’ mother, the Virgin Mary, and the tallest honors Jesus himself.  

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Architect Antoni Gaudí devoted the final 12 years of his life exclusively to Barcelona’s Sagrada Família, even living in his workshop there during his final months.

The church’s interior, which is shaped like a cross, is an homage to light and nature. Columns rise throughout the structure like trees, and stained-glass windows create a dappled light effect, like sunlight through leaves in a forest.

Even the colors of the stained glass have meaning. The blues and greens of the facade that depicts Christ’s birth on the building’s east side are meant to evoke feelings of joy when the morning light shines in, while red and orange will illuminate the Passion by the setting sun to the west. Behind the altar and above the cross, yellows and golds glow as the midday sun spills in.

‘God’s architect’

Gaudí, who has been dubbed by many “God’s architect,” is on the path to sainthood. In one of the last acts of his papacy, in April 2025, Pope Francis declared the architect “venerable.”

That is the first step on the road to a candidate for sainthood being officially canonized by the Catholic church. Francis based his decision on Gaudí’s “heroic virtues.”

The next step in the process would be beatification. Beatification normally follows a juridical investigation of the candidate’s life and virtues — or martyrdom — and the recognition of a miracle, according to Catholic Answers.

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