Constructing a new saint?

Perhaps no building more characterizes the Spanish city of Barcelona than the Templo Expiatro de la Sagrada Familia, designed by the architect Antoni Gaudi and still under construction. The "Expiatory Temple of the Holy Family," conceived in the 1860s as a Catholic response to industrialization and urbanization and the consequent dechristianization of society, was begun in 1882. Gaudi took over the construction of the Sagrada in 1883. Recently, a campaign to canonize Gaudi has reached the point where Cardinal Ricard-Maria Carles, the Bishop of Barcelona, has initiated his cause.

Gaudi worked on the structure for 34 years, living as a poor man and rarely leaving, his workshop below the church. In June of 1926 a streetcar hit him while he was walking to the nearby church of St. Philipp Neri. Because he was unconscious and wearing old clothing, he was first taken to a hospital for the poor. Only after a Sagrada deacon and a fellow architect recognized him was he given a room, where he died three days later.

Besides the Sagrada, Gaudi's Works--many of which are in and around Barcelona --include a park, houses, crypts, furniture, street lamps, cathedral restorations, public buildings, and church decorations. He executed many of his projects for his great patron and promoter, the Barcelona textile manufacturer Count Eusebi Guell. He also left many projects, including the Sagrada itself, unfinished. Although Gaudi left no written plan for the building, he expressed his vision of its completion in a model and drawings.

Should the church canonize Gaudi? In a recent interview with Catholic News Service, Father Paolo Molinari, S.J., president of the Vatican's College of Postulators that promotes sainthood causes in their early stages, said saints "are attractive because God is working in them and telling us something through them." He also said he is developing a proposal to expand the criteria for miraculous intercession by a potential saint to include nonphysical events such as the ability of an individual to bring about the conversion of others. Such a standard "would be more in keeping with the purpose of canonization, recognizing people as models of holiness for others."

Perhaps Gaudi's heroic dedication to his task of building the Sagrada Familia, his concern for the poor and for workers, his holiness of life, and the power of his sacred buildings themselves testify to saintliness. When asked by The Tablet (April 17, 1999) writer Peter Culshaw about miracles attributed to Gaudi's intercession--help with a student's architecture project, the painless expulsion of a kidney stone--Gaudi biographer Jose Tarragona replied that Gaudi's work was itself a miracle.