U.S. basilicas, churches to ring bells at the moment Notre Dame Cathedral reopens

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.”

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