The day before, at the Congress of Deputies in Madrid, a pro-independence representative had addressed him in English to ask him to speak Catalan once in “his nation”. Leo XIV responded in his own way. Arriving in Barcelona on Tuesday June 9, he went directly to the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia Cathedral – and not to the Sagrada Familia, where he will preside over a mass on Wednesday June 10 in the evening. As famous and spectacular as it is, Gaudi’s building remains a basilica, and not the seat of the diocesan Church. In the Gothic cathedral, the Pope celebrated the sext office in Latin – the language of neither camp –, suspending for a time the quarrel between Castilian and Catalan.
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