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.
This spring, the Vatican opened a separate “pathway” starting outside St. Peter’s Basilica for those who want to enter to pray or attend Mass, so they wouldn’t be discouraged by sometimes hours-long lines for the average of 55,000 daily visitors, said Basilica spokesperson Roberta Leone. “The temple needs to be a place for services and not a theme park,” said Joan Albaiges after Mass in the Sagrada Familia crypt, which he’s attended regularly for six decades.
Filled with masterpieces from Romanesque sculpture to lavish Baroque decorations, Santiago’s cathedral attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists and pilgrims who since the Middle Ages have traveled along the Camino routes to venerate St. James’s tomb. As crowds surged before the always-packed noon pilgrims’ Mass, he kept stepping to the main microphone asking for silence – which lasted a minute or so before enthusiastic visitors resumed chatting.
Now visitors can tour the structure for free outside of prayer hours. In Hagia Sophia’s main section where prayers are held, the vast mosaics depicting Christian figures are hidden behind drapes and most of the marble floor is covered with carpeting. “It was like being in a market,” recalled Anna Vilanova, who directs the cathedral’s tourism strategy. “We had to put some order.”
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