Tradition will meet subtle modernity in restored Notre Dame Cathedral

PARIS (OSV News) — The excitement is mounting in Paris ahead of the Dec. 8 reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral with only a few cranes remaining on the outside of the iconic French church.

As scaffolding has largely been removed from the outside structure, the inside renovation work continues at full speed to finish it on time for the most anticipated church event of the decade in the French capital.

Those involved in the reconstruction told OSV News that anyone who enters the cathedral testifies to their amazement and wonder at the new luminosity of the interior, thanks to the restoration of the limestone blocks, which have regained their blond hue.

What has electrified France in the final months leading to the reopening is the question of whether Pope Francis himself will come for the occasion — an invitation extended to the pope by President Emmanuel Macron in December 2023.

As rumors spread in the French capital that the pontiff would confirm his presence, Auxiliary Bishop Philippe Marsset of Paris told OSV News, “The archbishop is not aware of this.”

It is, however, “not absurd,” Father Gautier Mornas, who heads the sacred art department at the French bishops’ conference, told OSV News. “The scale and international dimension of this unprecedented project means that it is only logical that invitations are pouring into the Vatican for the pope to come for the reopening. For the moment, nothing has been confirmed. But it would not be unusual” for that to be the case.

The French state, which owns the cathedral building, was responsible for inviting the pontiff and led the restoration following the devastating fire on April 15, 2019. The Archdiocese of Paris was responsible for the interior finishing work, which must be completed “within a very tight timeframe.”

“The liturgical platform is still being laid,” Véronique Creissels, director of communications for the cathedral rector, told OSV News. Made up of stone steps and black and white marble slabs, this monumental platform has been rebuilt identically to its predecessor, but with an internal metal structure to accommodate electrical and digital cables.

The liturgical furniture — imagined and designed by the French designer and sculptor Guillaume Bardet — is composed of five elements: the altar as a natural centerpiece, the cathedra and the associated seats, the ambo, the tabernacle and the baptistery. Each of the pieces was designed in sculpted bronze, “a material offering a powerful, timeless and luminous aesthetic,” the Archdiocese of Paris said.

The sober, bowl-shaped altar was crafted in a style that Archbishop Laurent Ulrich of Paris described as of “noble simplicity,” in a reference to how the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (“Sacrosanctum Concilium”) describes what should distinguish the rites. “This liturgical furniture will arrive in the second half of October,” Creissels told OSV News.

“Bronze was used to be able to exist without shouting, without ‘over-showing,'” Bardet said of the choice of material.

The Archdiocese of Paris also entrusted Bardet with the design of liturgical objects, notably sacred vessels.

The entire order includes the chalice and paten, a monstrance, a large ciborium and several small ciboria, a censer and a boat, cruets, an ewer and a basin. According to the liturgical prescriptions, the sacred vessels are made of noble metal, silver and gold, but have a modern yet simple look.

As the whole country watches the last touches of the reconstruction, the process is not free from controversy. The new altar will replace the one installed in 1989 by Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, archbishop of Paris from 1981 to 2005.

Cardinal Lustiger’s redesign involved the controversial removal of a huge light fixture overhanging the altar, known as the “crown of light.” In 2014, the large neo-Gothic chandelier designed and created in the 19th century by the architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc was placed in the Basilica of Saint-Denis, the necropolis of the kings of France, north of Paris.

After the fire in 2019, the question arose of bringing the “crown of light” back to the Paris cathedral. “I personally would have liked to have it reinstalled in Notre Dame as part of this restoration, out of loyalty to Viollet-le-Duc,” Philippe Villeneuve, France’s chief architect for historic monuments, told OSV News. “But the clergy in charge of the cathedral did not want it (to return),” he said.

“The idea was not to go back on a decision made long before the fire,” Father Mornas explained to OSV News.

In another point of controversy, the commissioning of contemporary stained-glass windows for six of the seven chapels on the cathedral’s south aisle was proposed in 2023 by Archbishop Ulrich. The idea was considered during Cardinal Lustiger’s time but had long been rejected by the Ministry of Culture.

This time Macron gave his official approval Dec. 8, 2023, for the modern stained-glass windows idea. Critics however noted that the new art aims to replace what is newer than the cathedral itself, but still historic — the so-called “grisaille” windows installed in Notre Dame in the 19th century by Viollet-le-Duc, who restored Notre Dame at the time.

The “grisailles,” personally designed by Viollet-le-Duc, are windows in which the glass is painted only by shades of a single neutral color. They are something that became a natural part of the cathedral throughout the years.

A petition signed by almost 185,000 people urging Viollet-le-Duc’s project be saved said his colorful windows “were created as a coherent whole. It is a genuine creation that the architect wanted to be faithful to the cathedral’s Gothic origins.”

Before the summer, a committee made up of experts, representing the Ministry of Culture and the Archdiocese of Paris, studied the applications of more than 80 pairs of artists and master glassmakers.

On Sept. 4, the Ministry of Culture published the names of the eight artists selected to create the new stained-glass windows. They must submit their plans by Nov. 4.

“The project continues to move forward,” Father Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, rector-archpriest of Notre Dame Cathedral, confirmed to OSV News. “The specifications are that they should be figurative, and evoke joy, hope and peace, to bear witness to the exceptional atmosphere that prevailed during the work on this extraordinary site.”

For the cathedral’s chaplains, if the project goes ahead, these figurative stained-glass windows, centered on the theme of the Holy Spirit and Pentecost, will fit in with the new itinerary for visiting the cathedral that they have prepared as a catechism course.

Meanwhile, on Sept. 20, 21 and 22, the public institution Rebâtir Notre Dame de Paris, in charge of the cathedral’s restoration, will be welcoming visitors to a “worksite village” on the cathedral forecourt, as part of European Heritage Days.

For three days, craftsmen from the various trades involved in the restoration will be demonstrating their work. This will be an opportunity to showcase the new fire protection system, currently being finalized, which will be installed in the cathedral’s spire and roof timbers.

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