Month: December 2024

(OSV News) – Catholic and Jewish leaders have created a new tool to tackle record-high levels of antisemitism through education and awareness.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the American Jewish Committee have teamed up to release “Translate Hate: The Catholic Edition,” a resource that confronts antisemitism by cataloging anti-Jewish slurs, while providing Catholic teaching that counters such hatred.

The document was unveiled Dec. 11 by Bishop Joseph C. Bambera of Scranton, Pennsylvania, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, and Rabbi Noam Marans, the AJC’s director of interreligious affairs.

The 61-page glossary of antisemitic terms and commentary, available in pdf format on the AJC’s website, builds on the AJC’s “Translate Hate” initiative, which was first released in 2019, said Rabbi Marans in a Dec. 10 interview with OSV News.

“It began with a few dozen (terms) as part of stopping antisemitism, (which) starts with understanding it,” he said. “Now it’s up to about 65-70 terms.”

The document uses the working definition of antisemitism adopted in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, or IHRA. That summation states that “antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

Among the contemporary examples of antisemitism listed by the IHRA are calling for the killing or harm of Jews; dehumanizing or demonizing them; accusing them of killing Jesus (known as the “deicide” charge); claims that Jews kill non-Jews for the ritual use of victims’ blood (the “blood libel” trope); denying or minimizing the Shoah (the preferred Hebrew term for the Holocaust); collectivizing them for real or imagined harm; implicating them in conspiratorial theories regarding economic, governmental or other sociocultural control; and accusing them of overriding or blind loyalty to the state of Israel.

The Catholic edition of “Translate Hate” begins with forewords by both Bishop Bambera and Rabbi Marans, and includes numerous images of antisemitic tropes culled from recent periodicals and social media posts.

Rounding out the detailed explications of each term is an extensive bibliography of Catholic resources on Catholic-Jewish relations, drawn from the Second Vatican Council, papal documents, pontifical commissions and councils, and the USCCB.

Rabbi Marans admitted that the process of compiling the glossary was a painful one.

“It’s not pleasant to flip through the industry of hating my people,” he said.

According to data from the Anti-Defamation League, antisemitism — which has been on the rise in recent years — spiked to historic levels following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, when militants from the Gaza Strip gunned down more than 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took over 240 civilians and soldiers hostage. The ensuing Israel-Hamas war, which has threatened to become a wider regional conflict, saw numerous campus protests at U.S. colleges and universities during which antisemitic incidents were reported.

“We’re dealing with a three-headed monster with antisemitism,” Rabbi Marans said.

He listed “the skyrocketing toxicity of hate in the U.S. and in the world,” the historical “distance from the reality and the lessons of the Shoah,” and “social media.”

That last is “an enormous challenge,” said Rabbi Marans, since “it feeds on hate.

“It’s designed to do so because of its algorithms: keeping customers and sucking people in to escalate,” he said. “And secondly, it allows near or complete anonymity.”

He said the AJC is working “very closely with social media companies” to ensure “control of the excesses of certain types of hate speech, while assuring freedom of expression.”

Rabbi Marans noted the timing of the AJC-USCCB’s collaboration was “particularly poignant,” given the latter’s 2022 launch of an initiative titled “The Fruits of Dialogue: Catholics Confronting Antisemitism.”

Speaking to OSV News Dec. 10, Bishop Bambera said that “Translate Hate: The Catholic Edition” is “one result of that” effort.

Rabbi Marans also said the new document’s release presages the upcoming 60th anniversary of “Nostra Aetate,” the Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, which featured the Catholic Church’s first formal denunciation of anti-Jewish hatred.

“Nostra Aetate” (“In Our Time”), promulgated in 1965 by St. Paul VI as part of Vatican II, deplored “hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone,” while affirming the “spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews.”

Specifically, “Nostra Aetate” refuted the historic deicide charge against the Jewish people, stating that while “Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ … what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today.”

In addition, said the text, “although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures.”

“All should see to it, then, that in catechetical work or in the preaching of the word of God they do not teach anything that does not conform to the truth of the Gospel and the spirit of Christ,” the document states.

That language marked a seismic shift from centuries of what French historian Jules Isaac had called a “teaching of contempt” toward the Jewish community by Catholic and other Christian theologians.

In 1948, Isaac, a renowned Jewish academic whose wife and daughter were murdered at the Auschwitz Nazi death camp in Poland, published “Jésus et Israel,” the first full analysis of Christian anti-Judaism. The year before, Isaac also helped to develop the International Council of Christians and Jews’ “Ten Points of Seelisburg,” which stressed Christianity’s need to recover a historically and theologically accurate understanding of Judaism.

Scholars have documented a brief but pivotal June 13, 1960, meeting between Isaac and St. John XXIII as the major catalyst behind “Nostra Aetate.” Soon after, the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity — led by Cardinal Augustin Bea, a Jesuit — was specifically tasked with addressing Catholic-Jewish relations, a project that ultimately led to the secretariat drafting Vatican II’s “Nostra Aetate.”

Bishop Bambera told OSV News the full reception of “Nostra Aetate” at every level of the Catholic Church remains far from complete.

“I think the substance of ‘Nostra Aetate’ … has resonated with church leaders for the most part, and with a fair number of the Christian faithful,” he said. “I think where we have fallen short is we simply have not communicated and taught well the substance of this document.”

Bishop Bambera said that “the only way in which we will ever combat antisemitism is to understand it.”

“Part of the problem we face is that people don’t even realize at times that the comments that are made, and the attitudes (held), and just common references to the Jewish people in particular, have been passed down from one generation to the next in families and neighborhoods, in various communities,” he said. “I think people don’t even realize how hurtful those things are.”

Some anti-Jewish tropes, said Bishop Bambera, “have the potential to unleash tremendous hatred and destruction to a community of people.”

He said that reading through “Translate Hate: The Catholic Edition” highlights the historical sweep of antisemitism.

“It reflects centuries and centuries of hatred, of discrimination and of persecution,” said Bishop Bambera.

Combating antisemitism is also part of the church’s responsibility to foster ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, which is not “an add-on,” but “at the core of who we are called to be,” said Bishop Bambera.

“We never feign any sense of unity for the sake of the term,” he said. “But we (are) true to who we are, and in the process, work with who we are and our partners in dialogue.”

Learning and listening are crucial to that task, said the bishop.

“We have to know who we are as Catholic Christians, and what the church teaches about our relationships with other Christian communities, particularly in light of this conversation that we’re having with our Jewish brothers and sisters,” he said. “They are our partners. We share a patrimony. Our roots as Christians are in the Jewish tradition, and we need to know that. We need to be able to embrace that.”

Healing the centuries-old wounds between the Jewish and Catholic communities will take time and effort, said Bishop Bambera, emphasizing that “anything that is worthwhile is worth working for.”

He said, “If we listen with care, if we open our own hearts and minds to what we can learn from one another, I think we’re well on the way to achieving a more peaceful coexistence.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – “With tears in our eyes, let us raise our prayer for peace,” Pope Francis said as he thanked the people of Bethlehem and Palestinian authorities for a Nativity scene to decorate the Vatican audience hall.

A Christmas creche conveys the “message of peace and love that Jesus left us,” the pope said Dec. 7 during a meeting with the artisans, volunteers and government representatives responsible for the Christmas decorations in the Paul VI Audience Hall and in St. Peter’s Square.

Pope Francis asked them all to remember the people in the Holy Land and in other parts of the world who are “suffering from the tragedy of war.”

“Enough war, enough violence,” he said. “Do you know that one of the most profitable investments here is in arms production? Profit for killing — But why? Enough wars! May there be peace in all the world and for all people, whom God loves.”

In the creche in the audience hall Dec. 7, the olive-wood baby Jesus was lying on a white and black kaffiyeh, a Palestinian headdress. Some commentators remarked that the choice seemed to imply that Jesus was born a Palestinian rather than a Jew. And The Times of Israel called it “provocative.”

In a tweet describing the Nativity scene, the American Jewish Committee wrote, “We are disappointed and troubled that a meaningful religious tradition has been politicized in this way.”

When the pope stopped to pray before the Bethlehem creche at the end of his general audience Dec. 11, the baby Jesus statue and kaffiyeh-draped manger were gone. The Vatican press office offered no comment beyond a reminder that traditionally the baby is not placed in a Nativity scene until Christmas Eve.

In the meantime, the Vatican announced Dec. 10 that Pope Francis would meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Dec. 12. The two last met in 2021 at the Vatican.

Neither the Israeli nor the Palestinian embassies to the Holy See responded to a request Dec. 10 for comment about the kaffiyeh in the creche.

The Nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square for 2024 came from Grado, Italy, an island surrounded by a lagoon dotted with other tiny islands where the people have “casoni” or mud and thatch huts; traditionally people out fishing would stop to rest and fix lunch in the huts.

The townspeople, with 40 volunteer artists and craftspeople, recreated a casone for the Holy Family in St. Peter’s Square. And the three Magi journey toward the baby Jesus in a flat-bottomed boat piloted by an old fisherwoman.

Pope Francis noted that “a ‘batela,’ the typical flat-bottomed boat” is needed to cross the water.

Today, too, “a boat is needed to reach Jesus,” he said. “The church is the boat. One does not reach Jesus alone — never — we reach him together, we reach him as a community, on that great little boat that Peter continues to lead and on which, huddling together a little, there is room for everyone.”

“In the church, there is always room for everyone,” Pope Francis insisted. “One might say, ‘But what about sinners?’ They are the first, they are the privileged, because Jesus came for the sinners, for all of us, not for the saints. For everyone. Do not forget this. Everyone, everyone, everyone, everyone inside.”

Antonio Boemo, the designer of the Nativity scene in the square, told reporters the scene is composed of 102 pieces of recycled material which will be dismantled and taken back to Grado after Christmas.

He also noted that Mary is holding a lily in her lap. On Christmas Eve, the lily will be replaced with a statue of the baby Jesus.

Pope Francis, at the morning audience, and officials from the small mountain town of Ledro in northern Italy, speaking in the evening, insisted the red pine Christmas tree the town sent to the Vatican was cut down as part of an ecologically sound forest management project.

A local group had launched a petition in October to prevent what they called “fir tree-icide.”

Pope Francis said the old tree giving its life to provide the space and light the younger trees need to grow “can be a beautiful image of the church,” which spreads the light of Christ “precisely due to the succession of generations of believers who gather around the single origin, Jesus: the old gave life to the young, the young embrace and protect the old, in a mission in the world and on a journey toward Heaven.”

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – The U.S. bishops’ conference was among the groups that urged President Joe Biden on Dec. 9 to commute existing federal death sentences before President-elect Donald Trump, who has sought to expand the use of capital punishment, returns to the White House.

Opponents of capital punishment have argued that Biden, a Catholic and the first U.S. president to have campaigned on an openly anti-death penalty platform, should follow through with concrete action in the post-election lame-duck period.

Pope Francis also indicated support for that effort, writing in a Dec. 8 post on X, formerly Twitter, “Let us #PrayTogether for those on death row in the United States. Let us pray that their sentences may be commuted, changed. Let us think of these brothers and sisters of ours and ask the Lord for the grace to save them from death.”

An action alert from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops stated, “As President Biden prepares to leave office, please urge him to commute all current federal death sentences to terms of imprisonment before his term ends.”

It stated, “President Biden has an extraordinary opportunity to advance the cause of human dignity by commuting all federal death sentences to terms of imprisonment and sparing the lives of the 40 men currently on federal death row.”

The message added the U.S. Catholic bishops “have long called for an end to the use of the death penalty,” citing a 1980 statement calling for its abolition, as well as the conference’s vote in 1974 to oppose the practice.

“They outlined concerns with the death penalty that remain relevant today, including that the death penalty extinguishes possibilities for reform and rehabilitation; the imposition of capital punishment involves the possibility of mistakes; the legal imposition of capital punishment in our society involves long and unavoidable delays; carrying out the death penalty brings with it great and avoidable anguish for everyone involved; and that capital punishment is carried out in an unfair and discriminatory manner,” the USCCB action alert said.

The Catholic Church’s official magisterium opposes the use of the death penalty as inconsistent with the inherent sanctity of human life, and advocates for the practice’s abolition worldwide. In his 2020 encyclical “Fratelli Tutti,” Pope Francis addressed the moral problem of capital punishment by citing St. John Paul II, writing that his predecessor “stated clearly and firmly that the death penalty is inadequate from a moral standpoint and no longer necessary from that of penal justice.”

“There can be no stepping back from this position,” Pope Francis wrote. Echoing the teaching he clarified in his 2018 revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the pontiff said, “Today we state clearly that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible’ and the church is firmly committed to calling for its abolition worldwide.”

In a separate message, a bipartisan coalition including Catholic Mobilizing Network, former prison officials, family members of homicide victims, civil rights advocates and pro-life advocates circulated a joint effort urging Biden to commute existing death sentences.

“As Catholics, we understand that every person is made in the image of God and that our Heavenly Father does not shut the door on anyone,” Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of CMN and Sister Rita Ann Teichman, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph and chair of the group’s board of directors, wrote in the letter. “By commuting these sentences, you could use your constitutional authority in a way that would mirror the spirit of reconciliation during this special Jubilee 2025 year.”

“The death penalty has for generations been a veiled extension of our national legacy of racial terror and lynchings,” said Jamila Hodge, CEO of Equal Justice USA, another group involved in the effort, in that group’s message. “President Biden, like me a person of deep faith in God, has a historic opportunity to demonstrate mercy and the belief that we are all redeemable, by preventing an execution spree that will not make us safer, while moving us closer to reckoning with a system that unfairly targets Black people.”

Joia Thornton, founder and national director of the Faith Leaders of Color Coalition (flocc), said in the group’s letter that Biden “has a deep-rooted relationship with Black faith communities, and flocc represents more than 500 Black faith leaders, conventions, congregations and convocations in America.”

She said, “Commuting the federal death row would be an incredible milestone for those who believe life has value, mercy is encompassing and grace covers a multitude of sin.”

ROME (CNS) – With the city of Rome presenting a gauntlet of major roadworks and construction projects ahead of the opening of the Holy Year 2025, Pope Francis used the disruptions as an opportunity to encourage people to do some spiritual renovation before the jubilee.

On a cloudy afternoon with the threat of rain Dec. 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, Pope Francis went to the center of Rome to continue the tradition of praying before a statue of Mary high atop a column near the Spanish Steps.

At dawn that morning, Rome firefighters climbed nearly 90 feet using a truck and ladder to place a ring of white flowers on Mary’s outstretched arm and bouquets at her feet, continuing a Roman tradition that began in 1949.

Pope Francis brought his own basket of white roses tied with a yellow and white Vatican ribbon, and, as is his custom, he recited a prayer to Mary rather than giving a speech to the thousands of Romans, visitors and tourists who joined him.

Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri was there. He has been dogged with criticism about how the major jubilee projects, most of which are still incomplete, have snarled traffic and disappointed tourists hoping to see sights now covered in scaffolding.

Pope Francis said Mary knows the work is causing “quite a few inconveniences, yet it is a sign that Rome is alive, renewing itself, trying to adapt to needs, to being more welcoming and more functional.”

Speaking to Mary, he said her “mother’s gaze” sees beyond the construction chaos. “And I seem to hear your voice that with wisdom tells us, ‘My children, these works are fine, however, be careful: do not forget the worksites of the soul!”

“‘The real Jubilee is not outside,'” he imagined her saying, “‘it is inside: inside you, inside hearts, in family and social relationships. It is within that you must work to prepare the way for the coming Lord.'”

And, the pope added, “it’s a good opportunity to make a good confession, to ask forgiveness for all our sins. God forgives everything. God forgives always.”

Pope Francis thanked Mary for the suggestion “because, without wanting to, we risk being totally caught up in organizing, in all the things to be done,” with the risk that “the grace of the Holy Year, which is a time of spiritual rebirth, of forgiveness and social liberation,” can be stifled.

He also asked people to pray for the mayor, “who has so much to do.”

With the theme, “Pilgrims of Hope,” the pope plans to open the Holy Year at St. Peter’s Basilica before Mass Dec. 24. He also will open a Holy Door at Rome’s Rebibbia prison Dec. 26. The Holy Door at the Basilica of St. John Lateran will open Dec. 29; at the Basilica of St. Mary Major Jan. 1; and at St. Paul Outside the Walls Jan. 5.

Pope Francis thanked Mary “because still, in this time poor in hope, you give us Jesus, our hope!”

He also told Mary that “the flowers we offer you are meant to express our love and gratitude; but you especially see and appreciate those hidden flowers, which are the prayers, the sighs (and) the tears, especially of the little ones and the poor.”

As the pope’s car approached the Spanish Steps, a woman jumped the metal barrier along the street, sending security scrambling. Part of a group of women who want the pope to condemn bull fighting and have interrupted other services, she was apprehended immediately.

PARIS (OSV News) – Chilling rain and the “City of Lights” completely locked down due to high profile guests did not stop the crowds from arriving as close to Notre Dame Cathedral as possible for its inaugural Mass celebrated Dec. 8. The beloved Paris icon also opened its doors to the public for the first time after the devastating fire in 2019, with the second Mass that Sunday for Parisians and tourists.

The first solemn Mass witnessed the consecration of the cathedral’s new bronze altar by Archbishop Laurent Ulrich of Paris, with France’s president and his wife watching in the first row.

After a spectacular evening reopening ceremony Dec. 7, the cathedral was illuminated by daylight this time, when the procession of 170 bishops entered Notre Dame Sunday morning, followed by more than 100 banner bearers representing all of Paris’ parishes, and seven priest representatives of the various Eastern Catholic churches.

The bishops wore vestments adorned with golden crosses, created by star French designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, who was inspired by the large golden cross at the back of the cathedral over its Pieta. Castelbajac is known for his friendship with the late Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, longtime archbishop of Paris.

The celebrants took their places in the carved oak stalls of the cathedral’s canons’ choir, whose 18th-century upper panels depict scenes from the life of Virgin Mary. They were placed on either side of the group of children of the Maîtrise Notre Dame de Paris choir, dressed in blue albs.

The cathedral was packed when Archbishop Ulrich sprinkled the crowd with holy water, before blessing the altar, ambo and the lectern from which the texts of the Scripture were read.

As President Emmanuel Macron with his wife, first lady of France Brigitte Macron, sat in the first row with Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Teresa of Luxembourg, the cathedral was filled with invited guests, including presidents of French fashion companies and top politicians.

Outside, on the quayside behind the Seine River, hundreds of worshippers gathered near the picturesque second-hand bookshops, closed at the time, to follow the Mass on a big screen, despite the rain.

“Whether you are in this building or in front of a screen, or outside in the rain, you are recipients of God’s benevolence,” the archbishop said at the beginning of Mass. He also paid tribute to those “who face the rigors of war,” and prayed for France, “which scans its future with concern,” referring to the political crisis the French are experiencing these days.

The French government was officially forced to resign Dec. 5, after parliament ousted the prime minister in a no-confidence vote over his fiscal plans.

Given the large presence of political representatives, the archbishop of Paris addressed everyone in his homily, believers and non-believers alike.

“Do not be content to simply enjoy the pleasure of being here on such a special day when the cathedral of Paris regains its splendor, such as no one has ever known it before,” he told those gathered. “Whether you are believers or not, you are welcome to participate in the joy of the believers here who give glory to God for having found their mother church.”

“Do not only remain dazzled by the beauty of the stones found, but let yourselves be led to the greatest joys, to the most beautiful gift that God gives you and gives us of his loving presence, of his closeness to the poorest, of his transforming power in the sacraments,” Archbishop Ulrich said.

“This morning, the pain of April 15, 2019, is erased,” he said of the fire, which caused the cathedral’s spire to collapse, leaving Parisians in tears on the streets, praying for firefighters who went to battle the flames. The firefighters were applauded by a standing crowd for five minutes straight, as they walked through Notre Dame between dozens of heads of state, including President-elect Donald Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at the reopening ceremonies Dec. 7.

“Even if the shock caused by the fire may have been lasting, the pain was already overcome when prayer rose from the banks of the Seine and from hundreds of millions of hearts around the world,” Archbishop Ulrich emphasized.

What happened with Notre Dame — a speedy 5-year resurrection from the ashes — is not the only example of God’s grace through the centuries, Archbishop Ulrich stressed.

“Generation after generation — believers experience it — the Lord does not abandon his own,” he said. Even if “distress and violence do not cease throughout the history of men,” it is God and his disciples “who feed on his strength to show the way to the victory of life.”

The consecration of the new main altar was a central part of the inaugural Mass. The bronze modern structure designed by French artist Guillame Bardet stunned anyone entering the renewed cathedral as an example of contemporary architecture gently completing the centuries-old design.

First, the archbishop placed the relics of five holy men and women inside the altar, three women and two men, whose history is linked to the church in Paris, including those of St. Marie Eugénie Milleret, St. Madeleine Sophie Barat, St. Charles de Foucauld and Blessed Vladimir Ghika. Among the relics were also those of St. Catherine Labouré, who was especially connected to the day of the altar’s consecration.

St. Catherine is known to the world for having received apparitions from the Virgin Mary in 1830 in her convent on rue du Bac, in Paris, after which the religious sister asked, following Mary’s request, that the Miraculous Medal, also known as the Medal of the Immaculate Conception, be struck. The feast of the Immaculate Conception ordinarily is celebrated Dec. 8 in the Roman calendar; this year, however, as it fell on the Second Sunday of Advent, it’s been moved to Dec. 9.

After a long prayer of dedication, Archbishop Ulrich anointed the altar with the blessed oil of the holy chrism, spreading it at length over the entire surface with his bare hands. Then, incense candles were lit at five points on the altar, on the five crosses engraved in bronze. Finally, the deacons covered the altar with the white cloth and lit the candles to continue with Mass, accompanied by the choir’s singing.

In a message sent to the archbishop of Paris on Dec. 7, the night of the reopening ceremony, Pope Francis said that soon Notre Dame will “be visited and admired once again” by huge crowds of people from all walks of life.

“I know, Your Excellency, that your doors will be wide open to them, and that you will be committed to welcoming them generously and freely, as brothers and sisters,” he wrote, making waves of comments in France that the pope himself spoke up against the cathedral’s entrance fee proposed by France’s Ministry of Culture.

“May they, lifting their eyes to these vaults that have regained their light, share his invincible hope,” the pope said of 15 million people expected to visit Notre Dame every year from now on.

Notre Dame’s inaugural Sunday wrapped in Paris with a second cathedral Mass, this time open to the public, and celebrated by Notre Dame’s rector-archpriest, Father Olivier Ribadeau Dumas. To attend, it was necessary to have reserved a place in a new digital application set up for Notre Dame de Paris.

On Dec. 3, the day the application went live, the 1,500 places on offer for this first Mass had all been reserved within 25 minutes, The Associated Press confirmed. Father Ribadeau Dumas had long been looking forward to returning to the cathedral to celebrate such a simple Mass, once the “pomp” of the reopening ceremonies had been replaced by “humble normality,” he told OSV News several times.

PARIS (OSV News) – The solemn reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral put Paris in the center of the Catholic world on the evening of Dec. 7 as the archbishop of France’s capital struck the magnificent door with his pastoral staff, marking the moment of the iconic Catholic church’s rebirth.

The Gothic masterpiece answered with music as Archbishop Laurent Ulrich struck the cathedral’s doors three times – with the moment of door opening causing millions to hold their breath as the cathedral started breathing anew.

“Today, sadness and mourning have given way to joy, celebration and praise,” Pope Francis wrote to the archbishop of Paris — a message read in Notre Dame by the papal ambassador to France, Archbishop Celestino Migliore.

“May the rebirth of this admirable church be a prophetic sign of the renewal of the Church in France,” the pope said in his Dec. 7 message.

The reopening marks the “rebirth of France as the eldest daughter of the church,” one Catholic witnessing the ceremony noted.

The city saw exceptional security services deployed for the Notre Dame celebration, mobilizing 6,000 police and gendarmes, as well as bomb disposal units, snipers and the river brigade on the Seine River. These in turn were further reinforced by the U.S. security contingent deployed for President-elect Donald Trump’s visit as well as the security for Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Both leaders were in Paris for the celebration and met in the Elysee Palace with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Bad weather forced the change of logistical plans. Macron, initially scheduled to speak on Notre Dame’s forecourt, spoke inside the cathedral due to howling winds. But nothing could overshadow the moment Parisians and “tout le monde entier,” the whole world, awaited for the last five years, since the inferno of April 15, 2019, that devastated the cathedral’s interior and collapsed the now-rebuilt spire.

“I stand before you to express the gratitude of the French nation, our gratitude to all those who saved, helped and rebuilt the cathedral,” Macron said, adding that France had “achieved the impossible,” renovating Notre Dame in five years — a feat some experts predicted would take decades.

“Tonight we can together share joy and pride. Long live Notre Dame de Paris, long live the Republic and long live France,” he said.

The cathedral, which for the last five years was home to hundreds of various trade workers, felt as if all the crowned heads and riches of the planet wanted to witness her resurrection, with Prince William, the heir to the British throne, and billionaire businessman Elon Musk present among many. But it was Archbishop Ulrich that opened the cathedral up for the world.

“Notre Dame, model of faith, open your doors to gather in joy the scattered children of God,” Archbishop Ulrich called out in front of the central door, before striking it three times with the tip of his crosier. The pastoral staff itself was made from a beam from the cathedral’s roof structure that escaped the fire.

The cathedral then “responded” with the singing of Psalm 121 three times.

“I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the LORD.’ And now our feet are standing within your gates, Jerusalem. Jerusalem, built as a city, walled round about,” the psalm reads.

It was pitch-dark when the bells of Parisian churches rang out across the capital, announcing the arrival on Notre Dame’s forecourt of the liturgical procession of bishops from the Paris region, their chasubles billowing in the wind — with Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York among them.

The archbishop of Paris then entered the cathedral, followed by President Macron, his wife Brigitte Macron, the first lady of France, and Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo. At the entrance, the archbishop paused for a long moment as La Maîtrise Notre Dame de Paris choir sang the Marian hymn and President Macron took his place next to President-elect Trump.

Firefighters, craftsmen and representatives of the 250 companies and sponsors involved in the restoration then paraded through the nave of the cathedral to prolonged applause. Outside, illuminated “Thank you” messages in several languages appeared at the same time on the facade of the cathedral.

“I salute all those, especially the firefighters, who worked so courageously to save this historic monument from catastrophe,” Pope Francis wrote in his message, which was released as he was at the Vatican for the consistory in which he created 21 new cardinals.

“I salute the determined commitment of the public authorities, as well as the great outpouring of international generosity that contributed to the restoration. This moment is a sign not only to art and history, but even more — and how encouraging! — the sign that the symbolic and sacred value of such a building is still widely perceived by many, from those youngest to those oldest,” the pope said.

“We return it to Catholics, to Paris, to France, to the whole world,” Macron said of Notre Dame, which is a state-owned building under French law on the separation of state and church from 1905. He evoked the sound of the cathedral’s bells ringing again, like “a music of hope, familiar to Parisians, to France, to the world,” which have “accompanied our history.”

He spoke of “an unprecedented fraternity” that has “brought together so many people who have contributed to its rebirth.”

“Transmission and hope, that is the meaning of our presence this evening,” he stressed.

Pope Francis also praised those whose work of hands made the cathedral rise again so quickly.

“It is beautiful and reassuring that the skills of yesteryear have been wisely preserved and enhanced,” he wrote, emphasizing that many of the workers and craftsmen “testify to having lived this restoration adventure as part of an authentic spiritual process. They followed in the footsteps of their fathers whose faith, lived out in their work, was the only way to build such a masterpiece.”

The ceremony itself was an example of a masterpiece in moments such as the archbishop blessing the organ and addressing the massive instrument eight times, singing himself, with the organ responding each time in more and more powerful tones, as part of awakening the organ that had to undergo cleaning and restoration after the 2019 fire.

Among those gathered inside the cathedral were disadvantaged people specially invited through the charitable associations of the archdiocese, along with representatives of Paris’ 113 parishes.

“We were able to walk around the cathedral before the ceremony began, with the other guests, ministers, bishops, famous artists, in a smiling atmosphere,” Xavier de Noblet, 50, told OSV News. He represented the parish with the oldest church in Paris, Saint-Pierre de Montmartre, which is located on the famous hill just a few meters from the landmark hilltop Basilica of Sacré Cœur de Montmartre.

“This new Notre Dame is a jewel,” he said. “It is hard to imagine that this was done in five years, and not in 107 years, as in the Middle Ages!” de Noblet said, particularly looking forward to the organ’s revival. “It really is the voice of the cathedral,” he explained. “It is going to be a great thrill to hear it again, as if the cathedral were starting to speak anew.”

Father Gaëtan de Bodard, new chaplain of the iconic Paris fire brigade that saved Notre Dame — and successor to Father Jean-Marc Fournier, who courageously ran into the burning cathedral to first preserve the Blessed Sacrament, bless the burning church and then save the crown of thorns — was also full of admiration Dec. 7.

“The cross at the back of the choir shines brightly! What a contrast to the desolate photos of the day after the fire,” he told OSV News. “The simple style of the medieval frescoes that have been restored is touching and prayerful,” he added.

Outside the cathedral, chilling December rain had not prevented crowds from gathering in the famous Latin Quarter just across the Seine River. Giant screens had been set up to allow some 40,000 people to follow the ceremony.

“It is cold, and it is raining, but it is really worth being here,” student Agnès Boüan told OSV News. “Everyone here cheered when they heard the bells, then when they saw on the big screens the firemen and craftsmen marching,” she said. “And for me, as a Catholic, it is also a bit of a symbol of the rebirth of France as the eldest daughter of the church.”

Among the large number of French people who watched the event on television, one of them, Alain de Layre, was particularly pleased. In 2020, he donated six oak trees from his family forest, located two hours west of Paris, for the renovation of Notre Dame’s roof structure, after having them blessed by his parish priest.

“I am very moved by this resurrection of Notre Dame, and very happy to have supplied some beams,” he told OSV News. “It is a great pride for me to have contributed to this fabulous undertaking. I hope that this extraordinary undertaking will be a symbol of a new stage in the life of our church!”

For his part, Pope Francis invited “all the baptized who will joyfully enter this Cathedral” to feel “justifiably proud,” and to “reclaim their faith heritage,” when Notre Dame is back for Paris and the world, ahead of the inaugural Mass Dec. 8.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Becoming a cardinal is an insistent call to put Jesus at the center of one’s life, to love the poor as he did and to strengthen the bonds of unity within the Catholic Church, Pope Francis said as he created 21 new cardinals from 17 nations.

“To walk in the path of Jesus means, in the end, to be builders of communion and unity,” the pope told the new cardinals during an afternoon consistory Dec. 7 in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Cardinal Angelo Acerbi, a 99-year-old former Vatican diplomat, was the first to receive his red hat from Pope Francis. And Cardinal Domenico Battaglia of Naples, whom Pope Francis added to the list of new cardinals in November — a month after announcing the others — was the last.

Cardinal Francis Leo of Toronto was the only North American among the new cardinals.

Pope Francis presided over the prayer service with a large bruise on the lower part of his right cheek and chin. He had fallen early Dec. 6, and photos from his audiences that morning showed him wearing a small bandage on his chin.

Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, said the pope had hit his chin on his bedside table.

The creation of cardinals took place within a prayer service, which included reading the Gospel of St. Mark’s account of the Apostles James and John asking Jesus to “grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.”

The disciples’ concern about earthly glory also can infect followers of Jesus today, the pope said. “Our hearts can go astray, allowing us to be dazzled by the allure of prestige, the seduction of power, by an overly human zeal for the Lord. That is why we need to look within, to stand before God in humility and before ourselves in sincerity, and ask: Where is my heart going? Where is it directed?”

“Among the disciples, the worm of competition was destroying unity, while the path that Jesus walked was leading him to Calvary” and the ultimate sacrifice, Pope Francis told the new cardinals and thousands of people – including current members of the College of Cardinals – who gathered to celebrate with them.

On the cross Jesus fulfilled his saving mission, the pope said, and he tore down “the dividing wall of hostility” so that “all might see themselves as children of the same Father and as brothers and sisters of one another.”

“For this reason, the Lord is looking to you, who come from different backgrounds and cultures, and represent the catholicity of the church,” the pope told them. “He is calling you to be witnesses of fraternity, artisans of communion and builders of unity.”

In one reflection of the church’s diversity and universality, four of the new cardinals were not wearing a red cassock with a white surplice, topped by a red cape. Instead, the two cardinals from Eastern Catholic churches — Cardinals Mykola Bychok, a Ukrainian Greek Catholic, and George Jacob Koovakad, a Syro-Malabar Catholic – wore vestments from their church traditions. And the two Dominicans – Cardinals Timothy Radcliffe, a theologian, and Jean-Paul Vesco, archbishop of Algiers — wore their white habits.

Pope Francis gave each of the new cardinals from the Latin-rite church a red zucchetto, a red biretta and a ring. Cardinals Bychok and Koovakad received special headdresses.

And echoing the practice centuries ago when the clergy of Rome elected the pope, the bishop of Rome, each of the new cardinals was assigned a title or “titular” church in the city, making them members of the diocese’s clergy.

Pope Francis asked the cardinals to wear the cardinals’ red as a reminder of their call to “be fearless witnesses to Christ and his Gospel in the city of Rome and in faraway regions.

During the consistory, the new cardinals made a profession of faith by reciting the Creed in Latin and made an oath of fidelity to Pope Francis and his “canonically elected” successors.

With the consistory, the College of Cardinals reached 253 members, 140 of whom were under the age of 80 and eligible to enter a conclave to elect a new pope.

Speaking on behalf of the group, Cardinal Acerbi thanked Pope Francis and emphasized how the new cardinals were committed to strengthening the unity of the church and promoting peace at a time when, “unfortunately, the human family is disturbed and disfigured by inequalities, wars and poverty in many parts of the world.”

In his homily, the pope told the new cardinals that the Lord was calling them to be “a radiant sign in the midst of a society obsessed with appearances and power” by not arguing over who is the greatest or who is right most often.

“Love one another with fraternal love and be servants to one another, servants of the Gospel,” Pope Francis told them.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Anyone interested in Catholic Church can now see a detailed, interactive breakdown of the body that will elect the next pope.

The Vatican launched a “dashboard” for the College of Cardinals Dec. 5, allowing users of the web page to see a comprehensive list of the church’s cardinals and sort them by age, rank, country of origin, electoral status and religious order. Initially it was available only in Italian.

The dashboard, created with Microsoft Power BI – an AI tool designed to visually organize data – was published on the Vatican press office’s public website just two days before Pope Francis was scheduled to create 21 new cardinals Dec. 7.

The page — https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/documentation/cardinali—statistiche/dashboard-collegio-cardinalizio.html — allows users to see a map of where current cardinals are from, as well as the percentage of cardinals from each region who are under the age of 80 and eligible to vote in conclave. As of Dec. 5, for example, 47.8% of cardinals from Europe are eligible to vote in a conclave while 100% of cardinals from Oceania are eligible electors.

Cardinals lose their right to vote in a conclave on their 80th birthday or when they lose the rights and privileges of a cardinal, as was the case with Cardinal Angelo Becciu, former prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, who was convicted by a Vatican court for financial malfeasance related to when he was substitute for the Vatican Secretariat of State.

Beyond age, rank and geographical distribution, users can also sort cardinals by precedence, which is based on the timing of their appointment as cardinals and their seniority within their rank and dictates matters such as seating arrangements and the order of liturgical processions. The College of Cardinals is divided into three ranks — cardinal bishops, priests and deacons — which reflect a cardinal’s responsibilities or seniority within the church’s hierarchy.

Previously, the Vatican website only offered separate lists of cardinals, organized alphabetically by name, by country, by age or grouped according to the pope who appointed them.

According to the Vatican statistics, which include the 21 soon-to-be cardinals, there are 253 members of the College of Cardinals, 140 of whom are eligible to vote in a conclave.