"Temple of God and the Christian Community"

(POST TIME: 10.50am) Minutes after this morning's Opening Mass ended, B16's spokesman said that leading the consecration of Barcelona's iconic Temple of Sagrada Familia -- by miles, the most memorable, exquisite Papal Mass of this pontificate... and at least good chunk of the last one, too -- made for "one of the most joyful moments" in the life of the beauty-loving Pope.

Fullvid to come... in the meantime, here's The Entrance -- complete with the kind of applause that drives Benedict's "reform of the reform" liturgy team into fits.



Meanwhile, in a rush house translation, snips from the bull elevating Antoni Gaudí's masterwork to the rank of a minor basilica....

Temple of God and the Christian community: thus can one contemplate the temple built in Barcelona to honor the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the family from whose bosom our Lord consecrated domestic life with ineffable virtues, and by means of them, wanted to give us, that we might imitate them, the greatest examples of mercy, goodness, humility, modesty, patience and the bonds that come from love, that our own families might stand on the foundation of his grace and his peace.

For this, even from its first moment, (this temple) was raised up as as a sign of the perfect relationship of the art of the present with the faith and the liturgy, and also as a genuine image of the Holy Church itself, which is present and is a pilgrim in this world. This temple, through its beauty and its distinguished splendor, is able, truly, to receive the name of God's house. And it's very true that our Lord wanted to compare himself to a stone of this building, he who is the stone rejected by the builders to become, nevertheless, its cornerstone. He is the solid foundation this church encounters, thanks to its wise architecture, firmness and cohesion. Equally, this building can be called a holy temple, that is to say it can receive the name of that temple that, foreshadowed in the sanctuaries made of stone, is praised by the Holy Fathers and the liturgy, full of success, identified with the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, that we, as living stones, go forward to build upon this earth.

It is for this that, when our venerable brother Lluís Martinez Sistach, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, metropolitan archbishop of Barcelona, in his name and likewise that of his clergy and faithful, in a letter of 14 July of this year, asked if we would elevate this temple with the title and dignity of Minor Basilica, We, wishing also to give testimony of our personal goodwill, have believed it to be our duty to comply amply with the petitions of such a solicitous pastor....

Accepting, then, what pertains to this matter... the same day that, amid the joy of all the people, we have dedicated this most worthy of temples in a solemn rite, by the fullness of our apostolic power and by means of these letters, we embellish forever with the title and dignity of Minor Basilica this temple that, in the city of Barcelona, has been dedicated to God in honor of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.... May this good thing be a motive toward joy and the higher aspirations of all the citizens of Barcelona, so beloved by the Roman Pontiffs before us, and so too ourselves....

Given at Barcelona and signed with the Fisherman's Ring, the 7th day of November 2010, the sixth of our pontificate.

Killed in a tram accident in 1926 days shy of his 74th birthday, the temple's architect is buried in its crypt, in a small niche beneath a statue of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

His cause for beatification opened in 1992, two reported miracles attributed to Gaudí's intercession are under study, with the more enthusiastic expecting a declaration within the next five years.

PHOTOS: Getty

-30-