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 world was left stunned when the first images of the rebuilt Notre Dame were published and spread with viral speed as President Emmanuel Macron walked through the bright, unrecognizably beautiful Parisian cathedral on Nov. 29, a week ahead of the Dec. 7-8 official reopening.

Musicians and musical directors have prepared a wide array of performances to treat worshipers during the Catholic calendar’s most joyous time of the year.

Expected to top $30 million in ticket sales by the time it transitions from movie theaters to streaming services, secular reviews are exuberant and Academy Award buzz abounds for Conclave.

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.

A prayer shawl ministry at a Pennsylvania parish is wrapping hundreds around the world in what members call “a hug from God.”

A decade ago, Marguerite Stern entered Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, screaming and topless, to demonstrate her hatred of the church and the pope. In a gesture of repentance, she has now apologized to Catholics for her actions.

Anyone hopeful for a stronger Catholic presence in contemporary arts and letters can only be heartened in the aftermath of the recent Catholic Imagination Conference at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind.

“We don’t have another theologian, it seems to me, that has been as engaged with modernity as Benedict,” said Cyril O’Regan, a co-winner of the 2024 Ratzinger Prize, often dubbed the “Nobel Prize of Theology.”

This year, the USPS selected as the image for this stamp a painting that has been in the collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields in Indianapolis since 1938.