Pope Leo on Tuesday arrived in Barcelona where he will celebrate mass in the Sagrada Familia Basilica and bless the new tower that has made it the world’s tallest church.
On day four of his visit to Spain, Leo XIV took off from Madrid where he had given an unprecedented speech to parliament and held an open-air mass with 1.5 million people.
Before departing, Leo thanked a gathering of thousands of volunteers who contributed to the huge logistical and security operations at his events in the capital, including at Real Madrid’s Bernabéu stadium on Monday.
In Barcelona, he will visit the city’s Gothic cathedral and lead a prayer vigil in the Olympic Stadium later on Tuesday.
Excited worshippers gathered outside the cathedral hours in advance amid tight security conditions.
Religious observance has been declining for decades in Spain, a traditional bastion of Catholicism, but Roberto Crespo believed the pope would enjoy a “very warm” welcome in Barcelona.
“I think the people will show that there is more faith and more Catholicism than people generally think,” the 44-year-old carpenter told AFP.
Pope Leo XIV delivers a speech at Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu stadium in Madrid. (Photo by Simone Risoluti / VATICAN MEDIA / AFP)
Sagrada Familia blessing
On Wednesday, Leo is due to meet prisoners and visit an abbey on the mountain of Montserrat, around 60 kilometres (37 miles) from the city, before the mass in the famed Sagrada Familia.
The church is a still-unfinished modernist masterpiece by revered architect Antoni Gaudi that was visited by nearly five million people last year.
The mass will be held exactly 100 years since the death of Gaudi on June 10, 1926.
The fervent Catholic, whose cause for sainthood is advancing in the Vatican, was hit by a tram in Barcelona while on his way to pray at a church.
After the mass, the pope will bless the Jesus Christ tower, the soaring central piece, which was completed in February.
The tower brought the basilica to its maximum height, 172.5 metres (566 feet), making the Sagrada Familia the world’s tallest church.
Full completion of the Sagrada Familia is expected in about a decade.
The pope will then travel to the Canary Islands on Thursday and Friday, where he will meet migrants and the volunteers helping them, as well as pay tribute to those who die trying to reach the Atlantic archipelago.
