On Tuesday afternoon, Pope Leo XIV received three gifts from the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa. As Illa himself explained in a message shared on the social network X, the gifts were chosen to reflect “a country with deep roots, proud of its language and history, and committed to peace, coexistence, and the common good.”
A document linked to the birth of the Sagrada Família
Among the gifts presented to the Holy Father was a copy of the Acta de colocación de la Primera Piedra del Templo Expiatorio de la Sagrada Familia, the emblematic project begun in the late 19th century and now one of Barcelona’s principal religious and architectural symbols.
The document recalls the origins of the basilica designed by Antoni Gaudí, whose figure remains closely tied to the Catalan Church and whose beatification process continues to advance.
A piece from Paleochristian Catalonia
The second gift was a reproduction of a small ivory figure discovered in the Paleochristian necropolis of Tarragona.
The piece evokes the early centuries of Christianity on the Iberian Peninsula and highlights the deep-rooted presence of the Christian faith in Catalan territory since antiquity. Tarragona preserves some of the most important Christian archaeological testimonies in Western Europe, also recognized as World Heritage.
A tribute to the Catalan language
The third gift was a copy of the Homilies of Organyà, considered the oldest surviving text written in the Catalan language.
Composed between the 12th and 13th centuries, the homilies are one of the fundamental documents for studying the historical evolution of Catalan and remain a key reference in Catalan culture and literature.