The solemn reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral put Paris in the center of the Catholic world Dec. 7 as the archbishop of France’s capital struck the magnificent door with his pastoral staff, marking the moment of the iconic Catholic church’s rebirth.
The Gothic masterpiece answered with music as Archbishop Laurent Ulrich struck the cathedral’s doors three times — with the moment of door opening causing millions to hold their breath as the cathedral started breathing anew.
“Today, sadness and mourning have given way to joy, celebration and praise,” Pope Francis wrote to the archbishop of Paris — a message read in Notre Dame by the papal ambassador to France, Archbishop Celestino Migliore.
“May the rebirth of this admirable church be a prophetic sign of the renewal of the Church in France,” the pope said in his Dec. 7 message.
The city saw exceptional security services deployed for the Notre Dame celebration, mobilizing 6,000 police and gendarmes, as well as bomb disposal units, snipers and the river brigade on the Seine River. These in turn were further reinforced by the U.S. security contingent deployed for President-elect Donald Trump’s visit as well as the security for Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Both leaders were in Paris for the celebration and met in the Elysee Palace with French President Emmanuel Macron.
Nothing could overshadow the moment Parisians and “tout le monde entier,” the whole world, awaited for the past five years, since the inferno April 15, 2019, devastated the cathedral’s interior and collapsed the now-rebuilt spire.
“I stand before you to express the gratitude of the French nation, our gratitude to all those who saved, helped and rebuilt the cathedral,” Macron said, adding that France had “achieved the impossible,” renovating Notre Dame in five years — a feat some experts predicted would take decades.
“Tonight we can together share joy and pride. Long live Notre Dame de Paris, long live the Republic and long live France,” he said.
The cathedral, which for the last five years was home to hundreds of various trade workers, felt as if all the crowned heads and riches of the planet wanted to witness her resurrection, with Prince William, the heir to the British throne, and billionaire businessman Elon Musk present among many. But it was Archbishop Ulrich that opened the cathedral up for the world.
“We return it to Catholics, to Paris, to France, to the whole world,” Macron said of Notre Dame, which is a state-owned building under French law on the separation of state and church from 1905. He evoked the sound of the cathedral’s bells ringing again, like “a music of hope, familiar to Parisians, to France, to the world,” which have “accompanied our history.”
“This new Notre Dame is a jewel. It is hard to imagine that this was done in five years, and not in 107 years, as in the Middle Ages!” visitor Xavier de Noblet, 50, told OSV News.
Outside the cathedral, chilling December rain had not prevented crowds from gathering in the Latin Quarter just across the Seine River. Giant screens had been set up to allow some 40,000 people to follow the ceremony.
