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 This past Wednesday evening, Pope Leo XIV presided over the inauguration of the Tower of Christ at the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain. The tower is the capstone for the monumental basilica designed by architect Antoni Gaudí. Coincidentally, Gaudi died exactly one hundred years prior to Wednesday’s ceremony, on June 10, 1926. In 1883, Gaudí took on the challenge of overseeing the building of the Basilica. Following his redesign of the church, construction began and has continued for over 140 years. The mounting of the cross on the Tower this past winter marks the high point of the massive Basilica, making it the tallest church in the world. Philatelically, the Sagrada Familia was featured on the stamp shown above, issued for Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Spain in 2010 when he consecrated the Basilica. This past week, Spain issued a souvenir sheet tied to the inauguration of the Tower, as well as a set of four stamps for Pope Leo XIV's visit, which concluded this past Friday. Click on the Vaccari News article below for a look at the new Spanish souvenir sheet. Additional links take the reader to articles on the stamps of the pope's visit, and past Vatican and Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM) stamps featuring Sagrada Familia. Also below is a link to a YouTube video from the inauguration ceremony featuring a spectacular light show that was presented Wednesday evening. Vaccari News: Sagrada Familia Sagrada Familia Lightshow Pope Leo XIV returned from Spain on Friday, June 12. But his travel schedule is filling up for the summer and fall. During the summer, the Pope will be embarking on Apostolic Journeys within Italy to Pavia and Sant'Angelo Lodigiano (June 20), Lampedusa (July 4), Assisi (August 6) and Rimini (August 22). The pope will also make an unusual “international trip” by going to the land-locked Republic of San Marino as part of his trip to Rimini. And plans are taking shape for his next foreign trip, which will take the pope to France from September 25 to 28, with stops in Paris, Lourdes and Metz. Commercializzazione Filatelica e Numismatica (CFN), the Vatican City Philatelic and Numismatic Marketing division for stamps and coins, announced on Friday that it was increasing the volume limits when purchasing items on its website. A check of the website found that the buyer was able to order up to 100 pieces of particular items, an increase from as few as one to ten of specific philatelic releases previously (we did not check the numismatic offerings). Although this may provide some relief for vendors and others who may want to buy larger volumes of stamps, it still does not solve the problem for those vendors who in the past have needed larger volumes to fill their inventories and supply their customers. And, there is no tricking the system...the website tracks how many items you order on your account, so multiple orders to circumvent the limits are not accepted. It remains to be seen if this solves the ongoing issue of dealers obtaining adequate stocks to meet their customers' needs. This continues to vex VPS members who have been reluctant to open new online accounts with CFN (due to the amount of personal information required by CFN) and who rely on vendors to keep up their collections. |
