Pope Francis has approved this Monday, known as the “architect of God” for his work in the design of the Sagrada Familia de Barcelona. This is the first process in the long and complex bureaucratic path to be declared holy, and in this case it has been 25 years since the Holy See approved in 2000 to the implementation of the process. The next step is beatification, an even more complicated phase, since the Vatican rules require the certification of a miracle carried out in the coming years by the intercession of the candidate. Finally, to be holy, a second miracle is necessary.
The Pontiff’s decision has been known this Monday morning, in a statement from the Dicastery of the cause of the saints that has reported the novelties in several of the open files, including Gaudí’s. In the list of recognition of miracles, martyrdoms and heroic virtues, the last line includes the mention of the famous artist, “born on June 25, 1852 probably in Reus and deceased on June 10, 1926 in Barcelona.” With the decree that considers demonstrated the “heroic virtues” of the applicant, he is declared “venerable servant of God.”
The rector of the Sagrada Familia, Lluís Bonet Armengol, the rapporteur of the cause of beatification, was convinced that the contemporaries of Gaudí did not doubt “his holiness” and to prove it he points the articles published in the press in 1926 giving account of the fatal accident that segated the life of Gaudí and that moved the Barcelona of his time.
