‘God’s architect’, Antoni Gaudi, on path to sainthood

Pope Francis recently authorised the promulgation of decrees concerning six people, including recognition of the “heroic virtues” of Gaudi, who has been nicknamed “God’s architect”.

Born in 1852, Antoni Gaudí i Cornet accepted the task of directing the project of the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona in 1883. His focus was making art a hymn of praise to the Lord, and he considered it his mission to make God known and to bring people closer to the divine.

On June 7, 1926, he was struck by a tram. Not recognised, he was taken to the Hospital de la Santa Creu, the city’s hospital for the poor. After receiving the last sacraments, he died three days later, on June 10. Around 30,000 people attended his funeral.

The declaration as “Venerable” is one of the initial steps in the long and complex process towards canonisation.

Devotees have called for him to be named a saint for more than three decades, pointing to how the fantasy spires and intricate stonework of the Sagrada Família have convinced some to convert to Catholicism, The Guardian reported.

“There are no serious obstacles,” the architect and then-president of the Gaudí Beatification Society, José Manuel Almuzara, said in 2003. He described the society as a movement of 80,000 people worldwide who prayed seeking the intercession of Gaudí, beseeching him to perform miracles. The Church began considering the request in the early 2000s.

More than 140 years after construction started on the Sagrada Familia, it remains the largest unfinished Roman Catholic church in the world, despite Gaudí devoting the last 12 years of his life to the project.

Pope Francis also promulgated decrees recognising a miracle attributed to 19th-century Indian Carmelite Eliswa of the Blessed Virgin; the martyrdom of Fr Nazareno Lanciotti from Brazil; and the heroic virtues of Belgian Fr Peter Joseph Triest and Italians Fr Angelo Bughetti and Fr Agostino Cozzolino.

FULL STORY

Antoni Gaudí, known as “God’s architect,” declared Venerable (Vatican News)

Vatican puts ‘God’s architect’ Antoni Gaudí on path to sainthood (The Guardian)