Category: 2024 News

(OSV News) – As Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris officially reopens Dec. 7-8, bells will ring in churches an ocean away in the United States to celebrate the historic moment.

The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington has invited local churches to toll their bells Dec. 7 at 2 p.m. EST, when the two-day reopening ceremonies — led by Archbishop Laurent Ulrich of Paris, and attended by dozens of dignitaries, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, U.S. first lady Jill Biden, and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump — will begin.

The USCCB in a Nov. 29 post on X (formerly Twitter) had also invited local churches to join in ringing their bells in celebration.

“Please join us in celebrating the reopening of this iconic cathedral that holds a special place in the hearts of all believers and people of goodwill worldwide,” it added in another X post.

“This gesture of uniting our local Churches with the Cathedral of Paris would be one more sign of our union to the eldest daughter of the Church whose forefathers contributed so much to the U.S. struggle for Independence,” said Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in a Dec. 3 post to the USCCB’s X account.

Indiana’s University of Notre Dame confirmed to OSV News in an email Dec. 3 that its Basilica of the Sacred Heart “will join other Churches across the United States in ringing our bells” that day.

“This time has been deliberately chosen, since it will be the exact time the doors of Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral will be formally reopened and they will begin their rededication ceremony,” said Carrie Gates, the university’s associate director of media relations.

The iconic cathedral, built over the 12th to 14th centuries, was badly damaged in a devastating April 15, 2019, fire that was believed to be accidentally caused, possibly through an electrical fault or careless smoking. A number of pre-existing safety violations enabled the blaze to rapidly spread through the cathedral, which some 600 firefighters battled for 15 hours, with no injuries or deaths reported.

During the five-year reconstruction process, more than 1,000 artisans painstakingly restored the 12th-century cathedral’s stone, wood and art fixtures.

Notre Dame’s spire, which collapsed at the peak of the April 15, 2019, blaze, was reconstructed with some 1,000 historic French oak trees, and was unveiled in February as scaffolding was removed. In December 2023, Archbishop Ulrich placed the relic of the Crown of Thorns, as well as relics of St. Denis and St. Genevieve, inside the restored golden rooster — a symbol of Christ’s resurrection, and reimagined as a phoenix — that tops the spire.

Also renovated was the cathedral’s grand organ, the largest in France with some 8,000 pipes and 109 stops. The instrument had been coated by toxic lead dust during the blaze.

Gates told OSV News that students from the University of Notre Dame’s school of architecture traveled to Paris in the spring of 2023 to see the ongoing restoration firsthand.

During the visit, the students met “with the architects in charge of the restoration, climbed the scaffolding to observe construction,” and even “visited a quarry where they were sourcing stone for the cathedral,” said Gates.

As a result, she said, the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral “will be a meaningful moment for those students and faculty, in particular, as well as so many others here and around the world.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Hours after the last visitors and pilgrims left St. Peter’s Basilica for the day, a chisel clanged and dust flew as a group of prelates chanted their prayers before a simple wall marked with a cross.

In preparation for the opening on Christmas Eve of the Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica, Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the archpriest of the basilica, led the brief prayer service and ritual late Dec. 2.

As the cardinal and other priests prayed, workers broke into the wall that has sealed the Holy Door shut since the Jubilee of Mercy ended in late 2016.

The workers removed a metal box, tied with a ribbon and sealed with wax, that contains the handles and the key to the Holy Door as well as Vatican medals, documents about the last Holy Year and four gold-covered bricks.

As the clergy sang the litany of saints, Cardinal Gambetti led them in procession to the altar over the tomb of St. Peter and paused for a moment of prayer.

In a formal meeting room, the metal box was set on a table in front of Cardinal Gambetti, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, and Archbishop Diego Ravelli, master of papal liturgical ceremonies.

The workers pried open the box and unnailed another inside it, revealing its contents.

After Cardinal Gambetti signed a document attesting to what he found, Archbishop Ravelli took custody of the box to deliver it to the pope, the Vatican press office said.

Similar ceremonies were planned to prepare the Holy Doors of the Basilica of St. John Lateran Dec. 3, St. Paul Outside the Walls Dec. 5 and St. Mary Major Dec. 6.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Despite the problems and worries in the world, Jesus invites Christians to look toward heaven, trust in his saving love and make room for him in order to find hope again, Pope Francis said.

“Sadness is awful,” he told visitors gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the Angelus Dec. 1, the first Sunday of Advent.

“Indeed, it can happen that the anxiety, fears and worries about our personal lives or about what is happening in the world today weigh down on us like boulders and throw us into discouragement … and induce us to close in on ourselves,” he said.

“Jesus’ invitation is this: raise your head high and keep your hearts light and awake,” he said, reflecting on the day’s Gospel reading from St. Luke, which speaks about “cosmic upheavals and anxiety and fear in humanity.”

“In this context, Jesus addresses a word of hope to his disciples,” he said, by encouraging them to not let their hearts “become drowsy” and to await the coming of the Son of Man with vigilance.

The disciples’ hearts were “weighed down with fear,” the pope said. “Jesus, however, wants to free them from present anxieties and false convictions, showing them how to stay awake in their hearts, how to read events from the plan of God, who works salvation even within the most dramatic events of history.”

Jesus’ invitation is important for the faithful today, he said. “Let’s ask ourselves: what can I do to have a light heart, a wakeful heart, a free heart? A heart that does not let itself be crushed by sadness?”

Jesus, he said, “invites us to lift up our heads, to trust in his love that wants to save us and that draws close to us in every situation of our existence; he asks us to make room for him in order to find hope again.”

“May this Advent season be a precious opportunity to lift our gaze to him, who lightens our hearts and sustains us on our way,” Pope Francis said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis praised a new ceasefire reached in Lebanon, prayed for Israeli hostages and Palestinians in Gaza, and appealed to world leaders to help put an end to the war in Ukraine.

After praying the Angelus with visitors in St. Peter’s Square Dec. 1, the pope highlighted the devastating conflicts underway in the Middle East and Ukraine, and he encouraged all people to pray and work for peace.

“When one renounces the use of weapons and engages in dialogue, a good path is taken,” he said.

“As we prepare for Christmas, as we await the birth of the King of Peace, let these peoples be given concrete hope,” he said on the first day of Advent.

“The quest for peace is the responsibility not of a few, but of all. If habituation and indifference to the horrors of war prevail, the whole, entire human family is defeated,” he said.

A 60-day ceasefire deal between Israel and the Lebanon-based militant group, Hezbollah, went into effect Nov. 27. It also requires Israeli troops to pull out of Lebanon and Hezbollah to pull away from the southern border.

The cross-border bombing and fighting, which began more than a year ago, has forced more than 1.2 million Lebanese and 50,000 Israelis from their homes and left more than 3,700 people dead in Lebanon and more than 130 people dead in Israel, according to The Associated Press. The conflict began when Hezbollah launched rocket attacks against Israel in support of Hamas’ attack on southern Israel in October 2023.

Pope Francis said he welcomed the ceasefire agreement “and I hope that it may be respected by all parties” so that all those displaced could return home “soon and safely.”

He also made “an urgent call to all Lebanese politicians, so that the president of the republic may be elected immediately, and the institutions return to their normal functioning, so as to proceed to the necessary reforms and assure the country of its role as an example of peaceful coexistence between different religions.”

Former President Michel Aoun’s term ended in October 2022. The Lebanese parliament has failed to elect his successor.

Pope Francis said he hoped the “glimmer of peace” represented by the agreement between Israel and Hezbollah “may lead to a ceasefire on all fronts, especially in Gaza. I very much have at heart the liberation of the Israelis who are still held hostage and access to humanitarian aid for the stricken Palestinian population.”

The pope also called for prayers for Syria, “where unfortunately war has flared up again, claiming many victims.”

And the pope expressed his ongoing concern and sorrow for the conflict in Ukraine.

“For almost three years we have witnessed a terrible sequence of deaths, injuries, violence and destruction,” he said. “Children, women, the elderly and the weak are the first victims” and winter will only exacerbate the difficulties facing millions of displaced persons.

“I renew once again my appeal to the international community and to every man and woman of goodwill, to make every effort to stop this war, and to make dialogue, fraternity and reconciliation prevail. Let there be a renewed commitment at every level,” he said.

MALVERN, Pa. (OSV News) – More than a million people descended upon Logan Circle on a beautiful autumn day in Center City Philadelphia Oct. 3, 1979, for a Mass celebrated by St. John Paul II, the Polish cardinal who had been elected pope less than a year earlier.

At the center of it all, above a covered fountain on the city’s Eakins Oval, the pope celebrated Mass on an expansive altar in the shadow of an enormous 34-foot-tall white cross.

In the days after the papal visit, the cross, a symbol of one of the greatest Catholic gatherings in North America at that time, was taken to the outskirts of the city where it was erected on the grounds of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. It has been on display at the busy intersection of Lancaster and City avenues the last 45 years.

Earlier this year, St. Charles Seminary moved to another part of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and the seminary grounds were sold.

Fast forward to Nov. 11, another beautiful weather day in the Philadelphia area, and the newly refurbished cross was unveiled at its new place of honor at Malvern Retreat House where Father Douglas McKay offered prayers for a gathering of about 100 people. The formal rededication of the statue is scheduled for June at a Mass to be celebrated by Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez.

Father McKay, current rector at the retreat house, was a seminarian in 1979 and was chosen to be a cross bearer at the Mass with the pontiff.

“It means to me … what this is all about … the cross is the most precious image that we have, because it’s a symbol of the paschal mystery of Jesus,” said Father McKay, ordained for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in 1982. “The life, the death and the resurrection of Jesus. It’s so Eucharistic. And the Holy Father, John Paul II, he was so Eucharistic. He was so contemplative.”

Father McKay recalled the pope praying before the huge gathering.

“Then we started the procession to the holy sacrifice of the Mass. That’s what this cross is all about, the holy sacrifice of the Mass, the gateway to God, where all the glory lies. What it means to me is Eucharistic, the holy sacrifice of the Mass, and the banquet of heaven that is now. The kingdom of God is with us now.”

Of course, it’s the type of service a person never forgets.

“The privilege of being the cross bearer Oct. 3, 1979,” he said, “standing next to the Holy Father as he celebrated the Mass. … That’s what it all means to me. It’s all about the paschal mystery. Life, death and resurrection, coming home to God where we all belong.”

The idea of bringing the cross to Malvern came when a priest friend called Father McKay. Father Mike Kelly, a seminary official, called him and said with the seminary closing, they didn’t know what to do with that cross. “Do you think Malvern would want it?”

“Everybody got excited,” said the rector, who is a nationally recognized retreat director, author and evangelist.

The blessing and installation service for the cross included remarks from Michael Norton, president of the Malvern Retreat House. Father McKay said Norton and the active Malvern volunteers and donors were instrumental in helping arrange the heavy lifting required for the move.

The cross was moved to the grounds of the retreat house where a team of craftsmen painstakingly restored it for permanent installation on the 125-acre campus.

Officials said many individuals and companies have donated their time to the initiative, including JPC Group, Inc., Pennoni Engineering and Thackery Crane Rentals. JPC Group is a family-owned, full-service construction contractor operated by the Petrongolo family, whose members have been coming to Malvern for decades, organizers said.

Malvern Retreat House is billed as the oldest and largest Catholic retreat community in the nation. Founded more than 100 years ago as the Laymen’s Retreat League, Malvern hosts retreats for men, women, couples and young Catholics. It includes three chapels, four private oratories, four Stations of the Cross walks, a replica of the Grotto at Lourdes and countless shrines.

In August, Malvern was recognized as having the official diocesan shrine to Blessed Carlo Acutis, who will be canonized by Pope Francis April 27, making him the Catholic Church’s first millennial saint.

And now Malvern has a very large relic connected to St. John Paul II.

SCRANTON – Volunteers and local organizations came together Wednesday to ensure that everyone in the greater Scranton area will be able to enjoy a warm Thanksgiving meal, no matter their circumstances.

The Family-to-Family Thanksgiving Food Basket Program served more families than ever before this year, providing each with all the grocery items needed to prepare a traditional Thanksgiving meal.

“We are going to feed 4,000 families today, which is the most that we have ever had to feed,” organizer Linda Robeson said as the event began inside the Scranton Cultural Center.

The Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, was on hand to provide a blessing as volunteers packaged all the food.

“What a wonderful day it is and how encouraging it is for me, and this entire community, to see you representing all the generous hearts that make this possible,” Bishop Bambera told the small army of volunteers. “Thank you to each and every one of you, because every one of you is absolutely vital to this whole operation.”

Members of the cheerleading team at Saint Clare/Saint Paul School in Scranton were among those volunteering to assemble all the food baskets.

“Our cheer coach decided to bring all of us, and I think it’s a great idea,” eighth grader Marie Granet said. “We’re all getting together and helping the community, those in need, and I think it’s really good because it is just putting everything into perspective and helping us be grateful for what we have.”

The Catholic school students began the day at 7 a.m. – and quickly found themselves bagging up thousands of sweet potatoes.

“I think this is a great experience. I really enjoy it,” eighth grader Annabell Joyce explained. “It’s fun helping other people out. I like being involved in everything.”

Student Cate Casey said it was eye-opening to see all the volunteers needed to pull off the event.

“It kind of amazes me because there are so many people here packaging so many things,” she said.

The Family-to-Family Thanksgiving Food Basket Program distribution came just one day after thousands of cooked Thanksgiving meals were distributed to adults and elderly in the community by the Friends of the Poor.

Organizers of both programs say the Thanksgiving community programs cost around $250,000 to operate. They are still asking the community to help subsidize the cost of these important community efforts. Donations of any amount can be mailed to Family-to-Family, PO Box 13, Scranton, PA 18503, or given online at friendsofthepoorscranton.com.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Not every Christian is called to be an apostle, prophet or evangelist, Pope Francis said, but all Christians can cultivate the fruits of the Holy Spirit by becoming “charitable, patient, humble, peacemakers.”

Continuing his series of audience talks on the Holy Spirit, the pope explained that the fruits of the Spirit are different from charisms, which are given spontaneously by the Spirit for the good of the church. Instead, the fruits of the Spirit represent a “collaboration between grace and freedom,” he said.

“These fruits always express the creativity of the person, in whom faith works through charity, sometimes in surprising and joyful ways,” he told visitors gathered for his general audience Nov. 27 in St. Peter’s Square.

Before the audience, Pope Francis met privately with U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, who was in Italy for a meeting of G7 foreign ministers. While at the Vatican, Blinken also met with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, and Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, Vatican foreign minister.

After riding around St. Peter’s Square in the popemobile, Pope Francis was accompanied to his seat by a group of children, who then sat on the steps of the stage throughout the audience.

In his main talk on the fruits of the Spirit, the pope singled out joy as central to the Christian life.

Spiritual joy, like other forms of joy, includes “a certain feeling of fullness and fulfillment, which makes one wish it would last forever,” he said.

“We know from experience, however, that this does happen, because everything down here passes quickly: youth, health, strength, wealth, friendship, loves,” Pope Francis said, and “even if these things did not pass, soon, after a while they are no longer enough or even become boring” since the heart can only find fulfillment in God.

The joy of the Gospel, on the other hand, “can be renewed each day and become contagious,” he said. Quoting his 2013 exhortation, “Evangelii Gaudium” (“The Joy of the Gospel”), the pope said that it is an encounter with God that saves people from isolation and which is the “source of evangelizing action.”

“This is the twofold characteristic of the joy that is the fruit of the Spirit: not only does it not go subject to the inevitable wear and tear of time, but it is multiplied by sharing it with others,” he said.

As an example of living the joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis highlighted the life of St. Philip Neri, the 16th-century founder of the Oratorian order, who the pope said, “had such a love for God that at times it seemed as if his heart would burst in his chest.” The Italian saint is known for his work with poor children and marginalized communities as well as initiating a walking pilgrimage to seven of Rome’s most significant basilicas.

Recalling that the Gospel means “good news” in Greek, the pope said that its contents cannot be communicated “with long and dark faces, but only with the joy of one who has found a hidden treasure and a precious pearl.”

Pope Francis announced at the audience that beginning the following week, summaries of his audience talk will be translated into Chinese. Currently, the pope gives his catechesis in Italian, and aides read summaries in English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Polish and Arabic.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Doubling down on the centrality of synodality in the Catholic Church, Pope Francis said that it is now up to local churches to accept and implement proposals from the final document approved the Synod of Bishops on synodality.

Approved by the pope, the synod’s final document “participates in the ordinary magisterium of the successor of Peter, and as such, I ask that it be accepted,” the pope wrote in a note published by the Vatican Nov. 25.

“Local churches and groupings of churches are now called upon to implement, in different contexts, the authoritative indications contained in the document, through the processes of discernment and decision-making provided by law and by the document itself,” he wrote nearly a month after the synod’s close.

The final document outlined key priorities for the church, including increased participation of laity through new ministries and adjusted governing structures, greater transparency and accountability among church leadership and creating space for previously marginalized groups.

After synod members voted to approve the final document, Pope Francis announced that he would not write the customary apostolic exhortation after the synod but would instead offer the document to the entire church for implementation.

With the exceptions of the first synods convoked by St. Paul VI in 1967 and 1971, all ordinary assemblies of the Synod of Bishops have been followed by an exhortation on the synod’s themes and discussions by the pope.

In his note, Pope Francis clarified that while the document is “not strictly normative” and must be adapted to contexts where it is applied, it still obligates “local churches to make choices consistent with what was indicated” in the document.

He also underscored the need for time to address broader churchwide issues, such as those assigned to the 10 study groups he set up in the spring to explore issues raised during the synod, including women’s ministry, seminary education, relationships between bishops and religious communities, and the role of nuncios. More groups may be created, the pope said.

The conclusion of the general assembly of the Synod of Bishops “does not end the synodal process,” he wrote.

Quoting his 2016 exhortation, “Amoris Laetitia” on marriage and family life, the pope wrote that “not all doctrinal, moral or pastoral discussions must be resolved by interventions of the magisterium,” rather the bishops of each country or region can seek “more encultured solutions” to issues involving local traditions and challenges.

He added that the final synod document contains recommendations which “can already now be implemented in the local churches and groupings of churches, taking into account different contexts, what has already been done and what remains to be done in order to learn and develop ever better the style proper to the missionary synodal church.”

“In many cases it is a matter of effectively implementing what is already provided for in existing law, Latin and Eastern,” while in other contexts local churches can proceed with the creation of “new forms of ministry and missionary action” through a process of synodal discernment and experimentation.

Pope Francis also specified that during bishops’ “ad limina” visits to Rome, each bishop will be asked to discuss what choices have been made in his local church regarding what has been indicated in the final synod document, reflecting on the challenges and the fruits.

Meanwhile, he said, the General Secretariat of the Synod and the various dicasteries of the Roman Curia will be tasked with overseeing the synodal journey’s “implementation phase.”

(OSV News) – The devastating images – whether viewed from the banks of the Seine River in Paris or on millions of glowing screens around the world — stunned onlookers. Many wept, clutching tissues to smoke- and sorrow-reddened eyes, others prayed aloud or in silence, some even sung hymns.

It was the evening of April 15, 2019, and Notre Dame Cathedral – an 850-plus-year-old, stone-and-mortar monument to human ingenuity and religious aspiration – was burning.

France is a famously secular nation. Once known as “the eldest daughter of the church,” slightly less than half of the population call themselves Catholics, and only about 5% of the total population attend weekly Mass.

But on that slightly chilly spring evening, such statistics didn’t matter. A thing of beauty was being destroyed — and it wasn’t required to be religious, or even Catholic, to mourn its possible extinction.

“Paris without Notre Dame … madness,” one onlooker mused to CNN as it broadcast the conflagration. Experts later estimated the heat in the cathedral’s crossing reached as high as 2200 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to melt metal.

Now, five years later — owing to the courage of Paris’ firefighters, nearly $1 billion from worldwide donors, and the skills of almost 1,000 artisans — Notre Dame is scheduled to reopen to the public Dec. 7-8.

OSV News talked to a number of friends and admirers of the cathedral to ask what Notre Dame’s phoenix-like resurrection means to them and to Americans.

“When the fire happened at Notre Dame, it cut me so deep as I watched it in real time,” said Ron St. Angelo, a photographer who documented the cathedral during repairs. “Because Notre Dame — even though it wasn’t built for that exact purpose — has become the symbol worldwide for the Mother Of God, Our Lady. Notre Dame housed relics and artifacts from the Crucifixion, including the crown of thorns.”

St. Angelo is the official photographer of the Dallas Cowboys and also shoots for the Diocese of Dallas. For this assignment, St. Angelo lodged at a hotel within walking distance from Notre Dame — and on the cold rainy day when he first saw it after the fire, he had the impression tears were being shed.

Thinking back to the day it burned, “It felt like we were watching something that I would compare to seeing the Crucifixion. That’s what it felt like,” St. Angelo recalled. “Something so iconic and so symbolic was being destroyed. … I said, ‘They’ll never be able to restore this.'”

Circling the cathedral with his camera, however, St. Angelo became more optimistic.

“I started seeing all of the reconstruction and scaffolding and everything — and I thought, ‘They’re bound and determined to recreate this,'” he said. “So, in a way, it was akin to the Resurrection — because it was brought back to life.”

Among those entrusted with that task was Jennifer Feltman, an associate professor of art history at the University of Alabama who specializes in medieval art. She is a member of the “Chantier scientifique de Notre Dame” working group organized by the French government to play a role in the cathedral’s preservation.

“The first time I visited the site after the 2019 fire was with my colleagues in September of 2021,” Feltman said. “COVID travel bans had just been lifted for the USA to France, but we were all still in the midst of the global pandemic and it very much felt that way.”

Arriving in the City of Light, Feltman was immediately struck by a noticeable absence.

“When I saw the Paris skyline without the spire of Notre Dame, it was deeply sad. At the same time, it felt hopeful to see the energy of the workers and to meet researchers involved in the restoration, with whom I have been working,” she said. “There is a great sense of pride among all and a collective energy of being part of something that is much bigger than us.”

Feltman believes the reopening will represent a significant shift.

“On Dec. 7, the keys will be handed back to the church. A choir of workers and researchers will sing, and I think for them, this will be a key moment of transition from this being a worksite to becoming again a site for the faithful,” she said.

The river of funding that flowed to Notre Dame after the catastrophe perhaps defied expectations — or not, given the apparently universal affection for the cathedral.

“There is a very strong attachment – and even love – of American people for Notre Dame,” affirmed Michel Picaud, president of the Friends of Notre-Dame de Paris, a nonprofit organization launched in 2017 dedicated to raising restoration funds for the cathedral.

Its age and history, the lengthy alliance between the U.S. and France, cultural references such as books and musicals — all play a role in that relationship and the popular imagination, Picaud said.

“They consider that Notre Dame de Paris is not only a French cathedral, or a Roman Catholic cathedral – but it’s also part of the universal heritage,” he said. “People consider that this is part of their own culture, if you will.”

Although the fire was not a terrorist act, Picaud also sees an eerie similarity between the horrors Americans witnessed on Sept. 11, 2001, and the Notre Dame disaster.

“When the fire happened, I think the fall of the spire of the cathedral reminded people of Sept. 11,” he suggested. “And so, it was even more of a shock.”

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, who has accepted the invitation of Paris’ Archbishop Laurent Ulrich to attend Notre Dame’s Dec. 8 rededication, confirmed that residents of the Big Apple were indeed jolted.

“New Yorkers, like people all over the world, were stunned and saddened watching Notre Dame Cathedral in flames, even as we were inspired by the faith of the people of France that their iconic cathedral would soon be restored,” Archbishop Dolan told OSV News. “As I stood in front of our own beloved St. Patrick’s Cathedral that day, I expressed our hope and prayers that this magnificent monument of the faith of the French people be rebuilt.”

Located in Midtown Manhattan and known as “America’s Parish Church,” St. Patrick’s Cathedral established a “St. Patrick’s to Notre Dame” fund to contribute to the rebuilding effort.

The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington – the largest Roman Catholic Church in North America – also aided the effort, said Msgr. Walter Rossi, the shrine’s rector.

The shrine “established a special online collection to facilitate donations to support the restoration of the iconic cathedral, which, thanks to the generosity of American Catholics, raised $563,794,” he said. “It is wonderful that five years later, Notre Dame will reopen on the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception for the world to once again enjoy the beauty, peace and magnificence of this iconic shrine in honor of Our Lady.”

Vanessa Corcoran, a medieval scholar and advising dean in the College of Arts and Sciences at Georgetown University in Washington, said collaboration made that outcome a reality.

“Notre Dame took almost two centuries to build in the first place. In a world that’s so filled with division right now, the desire to unite across different disciplines and interests in order to save Notre Dame — and to restore it to its glory — is an amazing thing,” she said. “When they talk about the restoration process, you have scientists who are weighing in, you have art historians weighing in, environmentalists — and all bringing in each of their unique fields of expertise to make this happen. It’s uplifting to see that sort of collaboration.”

Ultimately, the work of all those who resurrected the cathedral serves the highest purpose.

“The reopening of Notre Dame in Paris once again allows for a unique encounter with the Divine,” said Father Edward Looney, secretary of the Mariological Society of America. “Many seek out the cathedral for its history and beauty, while at the same time they come in contact with the Lord, his mother, and the saints. A visit offers a person grace — whether they realize it or not.”