Downtown co-cathedral, Galveston basilica to ring bells as Notre Dame Cathedral reopens in Paris
December 6, 2024
Reconstruction work at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris entered its last phase as the world observed the fifth anniversary of the April 15, 2019, blaze that caused the spire to collapse inside the cathedral. Notre Dame is scheduled to reopen Dec. 8, to be followed by six months of celebrations, Masses, pilgrimages, prayers and exhibitions. (OSV News photo/Charlene Yves)
PARIS -- 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 Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in downtown Houston and the historic St. Mary Cathedral Basilica on Galveston Island will join in pealing their bells at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time in celebration of the Parisian cathedral's reopening, church officials confirmed.
The USCCB encouraged cathedrals, parishes and shrines around the U.S. to join in "celebrating the reopening of this iconic cathedral that holds a special place in the hearts of all believers and people of goodwill worldwide."
Other parishes around the Archdiocese will also be ringing their bells.
"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.
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.
Through a special online collection established by the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in 2019, the faithful of the U.S. contributed more than $500,000 toward the restoration of the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, which is dedicated to Our Lady.
OSV News contributed to this report.