The Holy Family to read in our time

Technology is the undisputed protagonist of our time. History—that science of humankind in time—seems to have ceded its prominence to a digital progress that threatens to displace humanity itself. Thus, a radical change of subject is taking place. A revolution that, in truth, already marked the 20th century.

The digital transformation is updating the same contradictions that brought about the industrial revolution, especially regarding the value and dignity of life. If factories then accumulated wealth at the expense of worker exploitation, today artificial intelligence systems concentrate power, data, and decisions in the hands of a few.

"If factories once accumulated wealth at the expense of worker exploitation, today artificial intelligence systems concentrate power, data, and decisions in the hands of a few."

The world is once again divided: no longer just into rich and poor, but into fortunate and disadvantaged. At stake, once again, is the value of human life.

A century ago, Barcelona was one of the key cities of the Second Industrial Revolution, along with London, Manchester, Birmingham, Zurich, Lyon, New York, Detroit, and Chicago. Cities enriched by their vast expansion, but also mirrored a development that exacerbated inequalities. A world polarized by families who, on the one hand, hired artists to decorate their luxurious homes, while labor in their factories was paid with poverty wages, at the price of indescribable humiliation and exploitation.

The Church takes a clear position. In 1891, Leo XIII becomes the "pope of workers" with the publication of the encyclical Rerum Novarum , a kind of Magna Charta that offers a comprehensive vision of the social problems of the time. The encyclical attempts to formulate principles and solutions based on the condition of workers and the Gospel.

1891 is also the year in which the Sagrada Familia received a significant donation. It is an expiatory church and was built solely thanks to donations. This contribution would have allowed for the complete realization of the original plan. Gaudí was still constructing the project he had inherited eight years earlier from the diocesan architect, Francisco de Paula del Villar. Instead of rejoicing at the prospect of completing the church he had been commissioned to build on the far outskirts of the city, Gaudí launched into a new project for the Expiatory Church.

“In 1891, Leo XIII became the 'pope of the workers' with the publication of the encyclical 'Rerum Novarum', which offered a comprehensive view of the social problems of the time.”

While working on the Sagrada Familia, Gaudí was trying to make his way among the architects of the time and, with his talent, win over the emerging bourgeoisie. He knew his times well. He was born in 1852 to a family of coppersmiths in Reus. During his childhood, the city went from being an important wine-producing center to a depressed area ravaged by the phylloxera plague.

Even as a child, he witnessed the disappearance of vineyards. And with them, the work of those who, like his parents, made stills for distillation. He saw the exodus of peasants to the city, in search of a future. He, too, embarked on that journey. But to study architecture.

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His resume was marked by important collaborations, although only as a draftsman. As an independent architect, he had completed modest-sized projects. However, they were enough to attract the attention of industrial families. He began to frequent them, adapting to a dandy lifestyle.

His first major work, however, was of a completely different nature. A Marxist-inspired project: the Mataronense Workers' Cooperative. There, the young Gaudí came into contact with proletarian reality. He learned about its needs, its hopes, its utopian ideals.

“Gaudí's first major work was a Marxist-inspired project: the Mataronense Workers' Cooperative.”

Straddling two worlds. On one side, the bourgeois society that enjoyed the Belle Époque. On the other, the humanity of the urban and rural proletariat. Men, women, and children abandoned to the greed of capital.

In 1891, Gaudí was no longer a young man; he was forty years old. He was an architect who had matured his faith while building the Expiatory Church and a man with clear political ideas, who spoke out frankly against mass ideologies and in favor of individual action.

So he decided to get personally involved. While Pope Leo XIII issued a historic appeal in support of workers through his encyclical, Gaudí proposed a visionary, entirely new project: the Sagrada Familia we all know today.

He began building the façade dedicated to the Birth of Jesus, recovering the medieval tradition that preceded the rift between faith and reason. He designed three portals dedicated to the theological virtues: Faith, Hope, and Charity.

"While Pope Leo XIII, through his encyclical, made a historic call for workers, Gaudí proposed a visionary project: the Sagrada Familia we all know today."

He begins with the images on the portal dedicated to Hope. Theological virtue seems conspicuous by its absence: the Holy Family flees to Egypt, the Massacre of the Innocents is underway; Joachim and Anne, contrary to the commonly known iconography that depicts them joyfully kissing in front of the Golden Gate of Jerusalem, on the Nativity façade, Gaudí depicts them as two bent-over old men with their gaze cast down. Saint Joseph, in an attempt to console the infant Jesus after the death of a baby bird, drops all his carpenter's tools.

All faces are filled with the desperation of those who live in injustice.

But this isn't an artistic interpretation: at the Sagrada Familia, on Gaudí's orders, the artists limited themselves to making molds of human, animal, and even plant figures. Gaudí had decided not to subject art to the judgment and taste of an artist, but to use reality as a model.

The people he met were chosen to represent scenes from the life of Jesus, embodying a story that no longer belonged to the past, but to the present.

Art critics questioned this method and the choice of models, arguing that "the worst subjects," that is, the poor of the neighborhood, were chosen to represent sacred images.

“Art critics questioned Gaudí's method and choice of models for depicting scenes from the life of Jesus; they argued that 'the worst subjects,' the poor from the neighborhood, were chosen to represent sacred images.”

Anyone who observed the Nativity Façade under construction was invited to question the meaning of suffering, the personal and collective guilt, and the moral, spiritual, and social challenges that marked that era. And that also characterize our own.

As construction continued, it became clear what was being accomplished. The workers pointed to it with pride, feeling it was their own work. One detail: the baby Jesus rests not in a crib, but in a basket, the bowl used by the workers to mix the cement. This humble and functional object, identical in name to the one that cradles newborns, speaks without metaphor. This vessel of manual labor unites the childhood of the Christ child with the work of the worker. There is no distance between the sacred and the everyday: the basket is the tangible form with which Joseph and Mary present themselves, saying: "We were once one of you."

Gaudí shaped the Sagrada Familia, translating into images the link between faith and social life expressed by the Church Fathers: Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Ambrose, and Augustine. He did not build a church closed in on itself, but rather a façade that looked outward, toward the slums. He did not reject the modern world; he welcomed it. He established a dialogue between the divine and the human. He showed that social tragedies are part of history and require a response based on Charity.

A Holy Family that embodied the words of Leo XIII:

“ But the Church, guided by the teachings and example of Christ, aims higher, that is, to bring the two classes as close as possible and make them friends…

The fortunate of this century are warned, therefore, that riches do not free them from pain and… that they will one day have to render a most rigorous account of the use of their goods before God the Judge…

To the poor, the Church teaches that before God, neither poverty nor having to live by work is a cause for shame. Jesus Christ… chose to appear and be considered the son of a carpenter .”

These words seem to justify why Gaudí, in the Portal of Faith of the Sagrada Familia, chose Ricard Opisso, a young man close to anarchist ideals, as the model to represent Jesus the carpenter.

“Gaudí shaped the Sagrada Familia, translating into images the link between faith and social life expressed by the Church Fathers.”

Gaudí already imagined that people from all over the world would come to admire the Sagrada Familia. Today, as that prophecy comes true, a new era is underway.

The Sagrada Familia is still under construction. The decision on how to design the main façade, dedicated to Glory, is underway. Following tradition, it will depict the Last Judgment.

Gaudí, however, does not stray from that starting point.

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Trusting in future generations, he left a few, very clear lines that indicate the humble, holy worker at the center of the new facade:

“Saint Joseph will be represented working in the workshop with Jesus.”

The Basilica of the Sagrada Familia, under the eyes of the entire world, thus charts a path: to develop a mentality in which every human life is a transcendental event.

By choosing the name Leo XIV, Robert Prevost was emphasizing the challenges of a new revolution: no longer driven by the steam of the Industrial Revolution, but by the silicon of the digital age.

When Robert Prevost introduced himself to the world as Leo XIV, for a moment, the chosen name seemed to evoke historical nostalgia. However, far from looking to the past, his choice emphasized the challenges of a new revolution: no longer driven by steam, as in the days of the Industrial Revolution, but by silicon, symbol of the digital age. Faced with the possibility of a new Rerum Novarum for our time, the Holy Family reminds us that it is possible to embrace the present without abandoning the human person at the center.

Now we can only wait for the Pope to visit Barcelona, ​​the new hub of digital innovation and the city where the temple of human dignity continues to grow: Gaudí's Sagrada Familia.