Details of Pope’s visit to Spain presented

(October 29, 2010) The sanctuary of Santiago de Compostela and the Church of the ‘Sagrada Familia’, or the Holy Family, in Barcelona in Spain which Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to visit on Nov. 6-7, are both of great symbolic and spiritual significance, said Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Holy See’s spokesman on Friday. He held a press conference to present the details of the Pope’s pastoral visit to Spain next week, which will be the German pontiff’s 12^th trip in Europe and his second to the country after that of 2006 in Valencia on the occasion of the World Meeting of Families. The Pope will arrive in the pilgrim city of Santiago de Compostela on Saturday, Nov. 6, on the occasion of the Jacobean Holy Year, which occurs whenever the July 25^th feast of St. James, known as Santiago in Spanish, falls on a Sunday, an event which recurs every 5 to 6 years, like this year. Later that evening he will proceed to Barcelona where the following morning he will celebrate Mass in the Church of the Sagrada Familia, during which he will declare it a basilica. Fr. Lombardi pointed to some of the features of the church, showing how architect Antoni Gaudi wonderfully blended Biblical and spiritual themes into his work, which is regarded as an architectural masterpiece. Even though the visit is largely pastoral, the Pope will however meet the Spanish royal family and prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and few others.