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Diari de Tarragona, a newspaper from Tarragona (Spain), reported on 3 September 2026 that the Vatican would examine, at a decisive meeting the next day, the presumed miracle attributed to Gaudí: the healing of a Dutch boy with a serious congenital heart condition. For José Manuel Almuzara, who has worked for Gaudí's beatification for 34 years, it is «hopeful, joyful» news.
On 3 September 2026, Diari de Tarragona published a report headlined «The Vatican examines Gaudí's miracle this Friday: a decisive meeting». According to the paper, an important meeting was to be held in Rome the following day, Friday 4 September, to move forward the cause of beatification of the architect of the Sagrada Família. The report mentions Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, the body of the Holy See that studies causes of beatification and canonisation. At the heart of the meeting was the presumed miracle attributed to Gaudí's intercession, the requirement the Church sets for taking the step towards beatification.
The case is the healing of a five-year-old Dutch boy who suffered from tetralogy of Fallot, a serious congenital heart disease. His mother is from Mont-roig and, according to the report, the boy's parents prayed to Gaudí. The story ran in the paper's Reus section, in the land where the architect spent his childhood, which gives the case a particular closeness for readers in the Tarragona area. For the Church to recognise a healing as a miracle, medicine must first certify that it has no natural explanation; its link with the intercession invoked must then be assessed. The cause now faces that twofold examination, medical and theological.
The report sets out the steps that remain. First, two doctors must determine that the healing has no scientific explanation. If both agree, the file goes to the Dicastery's medical board; the theologians then give their opinion, and the final word belongs to the Pope, who signs. The cause comes with extensive documentation: the former delegate judge of the process, Blanquet, submitted a summary of more than 500 pages in June 2025. The meeting of 4 September thus opened the decisive phase of the cause. To date, the outcome of that examination has not been made public.
Almuzara shared the news with words that sum up the meaning of all his work: «I am sharing some hopeful, joyful news, something we have been working towards for 34 years: Gaudí beatified, the purpose of the Association for the Beatification of Antoni Gaudí, which I have chaired since 10 June 1992». Pope Francis declared Gaudí Venerable on 14 April 2025, recognising the heroic nature of his virtues, and since then his beatification has depended on the recognition of a miracle. In the centenary year of the architect's death, the examination of the Dutch case brings the association closer to the goal for which it was founded and carries the cause to its most decisive stage.