Pope Leo XIV crowns the Sagrada Família and draws huge crowds in Spain

On his six-day visit to Spain, Pope Leo XIV crowned the central spire of the Sagrada Família with a white cross, fulfilling Antoni Gaudí's century-old design and making it the tallest church in the world. He opened the trip meeting royalty and civic leaders and addressing hundreds of thousands of young people, urging them to be agents of change in history through love. At a vigil in Barcelona's Olympic Stadium he fielded blunt questions from young people on selfishness, suicide, and forgiveness.

That a pope can still fill stadiums in one of Europe's most secularized nations is a reminder that the hunger for the faith outlives the predictions of its decline. The towering new cross over Barcelona is a fitting image: beauty and permanence rising above a culture that often prefers neither.