The legendary Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí, known affectionately as "God's architect" for his pioneering work creating Barcelona's Sagrada Familia basilica, has moved one step closer up the path to being made a saint.
It's now emerged that while he was still convalescing from his respiratory infection, Pope Francis received Italian Catholic Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, and signed a number of decrees, including one on the Catalan architect.
Despite being a layman, the Holy See allowed Gaudí to be buried in the Sagrada Família, the church he designed. The process for the architect's beatification is now underway in Rome, and a tribunal has to determine whether there have been any miraculous events connected with him.
The Sagrada Família is expected to be completed in 2026, coinciding with the centenary of Gaudí's death. Once its spires are completed, the Sagrada Família will become the tallest cathedral in the world.
The steps to sainthood
In the Catholic Church, the steps to sainthood are: to become a servant of God, then venerable, blessed, and finally a saint.
Gaudí, born on 25 June 1852 and died on 10 June 1926 in Barcelona, is already deemed to be a servant on his journey towards beatification and will have to go through several stages.
Once he is declared "venerable servant of God", a title given to a deceased person who is recognised as having "lived the virtues in a heroic manner", he would have to be declared blessed and only then a saint.
The case of a woman from Reus who claims to have recovered her sight thanks to her devotion to Gaudí, together with a biography with testimonies of people who knew him are some evidence of this supposed sanctity, according to an investigation by the state broadcaster TVE.
For Gaudí to be beatified, a miracle must have taken place.
For a venerable person to be beatified, it is necessary for a miracle to have taken place due to his intercession, and for him to be canonised or made a saint, a second miracle worked through his intercession is required, after he has been proclaimed blessed.
The process of beatification of the architect was promoted 30 years ago by the Association for the Beatification of Antoni Gaudí, founded in 1992 and chaired by José Manuel Almuzara.
According to the canonical association, Gaudí was "a witness of faith, a man of faith, a great observer of nature and a brilliant architect, and has become a universal figure of modern architecture. His contribution to this discipline broke with established patterns. The testimony of faith he offered during his lifetime is reflected in his most important work, the Sagrada Família in Barcelona.
The beauty of things and eternal life
In March 2000, the Holy See authorised the formal opening of the diocesan process of beatification, which led to the constitution of the corresponding tribunal to investigate his reputation for sanctity.
On his trip to Spain in 2010, Pope Benedict XVI, when he consecrated the Sagrada Família, defined Gaudí as a "brilliant architect and consistent Christian who overcame the current split between human conscience and Christian conscience, between existence in this temporal world and openness to an eternal life, between the beauty of things and God as Beauty".
