GIOVANNA DELL’ORTO
A recent Saturday evening Mass at Sagrada Familia parish had all the hallmarks of a neighborhood worship service, from prayers for ill and deceased members to name-day wishes for two congregants in the pews.
But it also featured security checks to get in and curious tourists peering down to take photos of the worshippers from above. The regular Mass is held in the crypt of modernist architect Antoni Gaudí’s masterpiece church, one of Europe’s most visited monuments.
With tourism reaching or surpassing pre-pandemic records in Barcelona and across southern Europe, iconic sacred sites are struggling to accommodate the faithful who
“We’re working to get ahead of this, so that we don’t get to a collapse,” said the Rev. Josep Maria Turull, rector at Sagrada Familia and the Barcelona archdiocese’s director for tourism, pilgrimage and sanctuaries.
An increasingly popular strategy is to have visitors and the faithful go separate
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