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Christians celebrate Easter at Church of the Holy Sepulcher in contested Jerusalem
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Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia church expected to be completed in 2026
Barcelona’s famous basilica, the Sagrada Familia, is set to be completed in 2026 after more than a century of construction, according to an annual report released last week.
The report said that the church is in the “final stage of construction,” which began last year with the completion of its towers of the Evangelists. It added that the work is underway for the Chapel of the Assumption and tower of Jesus Christ.
“The Chapel of the Assumption is expected to be finished in 2025 and the tower of Jesus Christ, in 2026,” the report said.
The report noted that the Sagrada Familia had 4,707,367 visitors in 2023, and income of over $137 million. Fifty-two percent of the funds went toward construction.
The basilica took shape from the vision of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí, who took over building plans in 1883 after construction began the year prior. He was a devout Catholic and believed the church’s construction was his way to make amends with God for the sins of the modern world, “60 Minutes” reported.
His work on the Sagrada Familia’s Nativity façade and crypt have been recognized as UNESCO sites.
David Zorrakino/Europa Press via Getty Images
Gijs van Hensbergen, who wrote a biography on Gaudí, told “60 Minutes” in 2013 that he wanted to “write the history of the whole of the Catholic faith in one building.” In particular, he pointed to the church’s ceiling as “a striking display of Gaudí’s engineering genius.”
“He wanted the interior of his church to have the feel of a forest because that’s where he believed man could feel closest to God,” van Hensbergen told “60 Minutes.” “And when you look upwards, you can see Gaudí’s columns branching out like trees.”
Lorena Sopena/Europa Press via Getty Images
Gaudí died in 1926. Since then, multiple architects and site managers have worked to finish the basilica in time for the 100th anniversary of Gaudí’s death.
It is currently the largest unfinished Catholic church in the world. When it’s completed, it’s set to be the tallest church in the world, beating out the Ulm Minster in Germany.
Christopher Brito
Leah Remini sues Church of Scientology, alleging “harassment, intimidation, surveillance, and defamation”
Actor and former Church of Scientology member Leah Remini filed a lawsuit against the organization and its leader, David Miscavige, on Wednesday.
Remini, who left the church in 2013 after being a member since childhood, alleged she’s been the victim of harassment, intimidation, surveillance and defamation for 17 years. She’s seeking compensatory and punitive damages for the economic and psychological harm she claims the church inflicted upon her.
“Most importantly, she seeks injunctive relief to end Scientology’s policies against Suppressive Persons so that current and former Scientologists, and others who wish to expose Scientology’s abuses, including journalists and advocates, may feel free to hold Scientology accountable without the fear that they will be threatened into silence,” her attorneys wrote in a 60-page complaint filed in California’s Superior Court.
According to the church’s website, “Scientology is a religion that offers a precise path leading to a complete and certain understanding of one’s true spiritual nature and one’s relationship to self, family, groups, Mankind, all life forms, the material universe, the spiritual universe and the Supreme Being.”
Remini has spoken out against the church for years. But several prominent celebrities, including Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Elisabeth Moss and Danny Masterson, continue to be affiliated with the religion.
Remini has said in the past that Cruise was one of the reasons she left Scientology.
“Being critical of Tom Cruise is being critical of Scientology itself … you are evil,” she told “20/20” correspondent Dan Harris in 2015.
CBS News has reached out to the Church of Scientology for comment. The church has not yet responded, but the organization has addressed Remini in the past. In a letter to cable network A&E regarding Remini’s docu-series about the religion, the Church of Scientology said Remini was incapable of being objective about Scientology.
“Unable to move on with her life, Ms. Remini has made a cottage industry out of whining both about her former religion that expelled her as well as her former friends she alienated with her unending bitterness and seething anger,” the church wrote in 2016, according to A&E. “Rather than letting go, Ms. Remini has doubled down on her obsessive hatred, turning into the obnoxious, spiteful ex-Scientologist she once vowed she would never become.”
In a Wednesday press release, Remini said she and others should be allowed to “speak the truth and report the facts about Scientology.”
“Those in the entertainment business should have a right to tell jokes and stories without facing an operation from Scientology which uses its resources in Hollywood to destroy their lives and careers,” Remini said. “With this lawsuit, I hope to protect the rights afforded to them and me by the Constitution of the United States to speak the truth and report the facts about Scientology without fear of vicious and vindictive retribution, of which most have no way to fight back.”
Leah Remini sues Church of Scientology, says she’s been threatened and subjected to ‘psychological torture’
LOS ANGELES — Actor Leah Remini filed a lawsuit against the Church of Scientology and its leader, David Miscavige, alleging that she has been threatened, harassed and stalked for the past decade.
The “King of Queens” star says she has been the victim of “intentional malicious and fraudulent rumors via hundreds of Scientology-controlled and -coordinated social media accounts that exist solely to intimidate and spread misinformation,” according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Remini has been an outspoken critic of the controversial church since she left it in 2013. She co-created and hosted an anti-Scientology documentary series, “Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath,” that aired from 2016 to 2019 on A&E and won two Emmy awards.
“For 17 years, Scientology and David Miscavige have subjected me to what I believe to be psychological torture, defamation, surveillance, harassment, and intimidation, significantly impacting my life and career,” Remini said in a statement Wednesday.
The Church of Scientology and a rep for Miscavige did not immediately respond to an NBC News request for comment.
Remini said that Miscavige and other defendants began the attacks more than a decade ago, alleging that current and former Scientologists were enlisted to record defamatory video statements against her.
The claims include that she “was abusive to her mother and daughter, and that she is a racist,” the suit says. Her now-deceased father, George Remini, and his wife were allegedly some of the people the church used to attack her, according to the lawsuit, which linked to a video.
In 2015, Remini said she was forced to hire bodyguards for the first time in her life because she feared for her physical safety. She says she hired the guards after learning private investigators allegedly working for the church were following her during the New York promotion of her book, “Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood.”
The lawsuit details other alleged attacks. In 2018, the church organized a meeting with celebrity Scientologists and drilled attendees on “how to attack Ms. Remini’s credibility, based on lies, using talking points that Scientology wrote,” according to the lawsuit.
Remini also accused the church of enlisting a man with “a history of mental illness and a violent criminal record” to stalk and surveil her at her Los Angeles home, the suit says.
Remini and her neighbors allegedly saw the man in a parked white vehicle outside Remini’s home in July and August 2020. The lawsuit accuses the man of ramming his vehicle into the security gates of her community and asking residents where she lived. The man was arrested and released only to be arrested a second time after he falsely claimed that Remini was holding hostages at her home, according to the lawsuit.
The attacks have not stopped, according to the suit, which says that the actor’s family and friends have also been subjected to the harassment.
She said in her statement that she does not believe she is the religion’s first victim, “but I intend to be the last.”
“While advocating for victims of Scientology has significantly impacted my life and career, Scientology’s final objective of silencing me has not been achieved,” Remini said.
“While this lawsuit is about what Scientology has done to me, I am one of thousands of targets of Scientology over the past seven decades. People who share what they’ve experienced in Scientology, and those who tell their stories and advocate for them, should be free to do so without fearing retaliation from a cult with tax exemption and billions in assets,” she said.
Remini is seeking compensatory and punitive damages “for the enormous economic and psychological harm” that the church’s alleged attacks have caused, and hopes to deter the church from “continuing their unlawful campaign of harassment and intimidation.”
