Pope consecrates Sagrada Famlias tallest tower amid controversy over mass tourism

23 articles·14 sources·updated about 2 hours ago·View in graph

Pope Leo XIV consecrates world’s tallest church tower in Barcelona as Sagrada Família nears completion amid controversy

Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday consecrated the new central tower of Barcelona’s Sagrada Família, transforming the basilica into the tallest church on Earth and marking the centenary of Antoni Gaudí’s death. The 172.5-metre spire, crowned with a cross and a six-metre bronze star, was blessed during a solemn ceremony attended by tens of thousands of pilgrims and dignitaries, including Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Catalan President Pere Aragonès. The event capped a day-long visit that saw the pontiff ride the papal popemobile through the Eixample district, where traffic was halted on major arteries such as Passeig de Gràcia and Via Laietana .

The inauguration comes as the basilica, under construction since 1882, faces mounting pressure from its own success. In 2025, 22 million visitors passed through the site and its surroundings, turning the once-quiet Gràcia neighbourhood into what locals describe as “a theme park on overdrive.” Residents told *Libération* that the influx has made daily life unbearable, with noise, queues and commercialisation overwhelming the area. “It’s like living in a theme park that never closes,” one resident said .

The consecration also reignites debates over displacement linked to the basilica’s expansion. Catalan authorities confirmed that up to 1,000 residents could be relocated over the next decade to make way for new access routes and visitor facilities, a prospect that has drawn criticism from housing activists. The controversy underscores the paradox of Gaudí’s unfinished masterpiece: a symbol of Catalan identity now straining the community it was meant to inspire.

Gaudí himself, whose 1926 death the pope’s visit commemorates, once remarked that “the owner of the work has no hurry,” a philosophy that has guided the temple’s century-long gestation. Yet today, urgency is palpable. The new tower, clad in translucent stone and crowned with a star, completes the basilica’s central axis and brings Gaudí’s vision—begun with private donations and interrupted by civil war and financial crisis—within sight of completion. Critics, however, argue that the basilica’s two “skins”—one organic, one repetitive—reflect a tension between reverence and commercialisation .

Sánchez seized the occasion to shore up political alliances, delegating six events in the Canary Islands to socialist leader Ángel Víctor Torres while personally welcoming the pope in Barcelona. The move is seen as an attempt to bolster the PSOE’s presence in the archipelago ahead of regional elections. Meanwhile, Catalan leaders used the visit to reaffirm the region’s Catholic and cultural identity, with former president Carles Puigdemont and Republican Left leader Pere Junqueras among those attending the ceremony .

As the basilica’s scaffolding is dismantled and the final spires take shape against the Barcelona skyline, the pope’s blessing marks not just a milestone in architecture, but a moment of reckoning for a city—and a community—grappling with the cost of its own global icon.

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