Notre Dame de Paris

Firefighters and police officers formed a human chain to rescue the crown of thorns from the inferno at Notre Dame on April 15, 2019. On Dec. 13, 2024, this holiest relic of Paris' cathedral was returned to its proper home on the Île de la Cité.

Chilling rain and the "City of Lights" completely locked down due to high profile guests did not stop the crowds from arriving as close to Notre Dame Cathedral as possible for its inaugural Mass celebrated Dec. 8. The beloved Paris icon also opened its doors to the public for the first time after the devastating fire in 2019, with the second Mass that Sunday for Parisians and tourists.

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.

Past memories of Ottawa's Notre Dame Cemetery have been brought back to life.

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.

During the Paris Olympic Games, track and field champions rang the bronze bell located close to the finish line at Saint-Denis' Stade de France. In December, that same bell will ring in the newly reopened Notre Dame Cathedral during the most sacred part of the Mass.

The square in front of Notre Dame Cathedral was bathed in sunshine Aug. 4 as representatives of the five major religions involved in the Paris Olympic Games met.

Paris is not a city, it's a world, they say, and so is the rich Catholic culture visible in its people and places. We gathered nine names of Parisian saints to accompany Catholics in 2024 -- the year of the Olympics and reopening of iconic Notre Dame Cathedral.

In April 2019, when Notre Dame Cathedral was afire in Paris, I was on a cross-country drive. I had decided not to listen to the news, but rather to pray and think, so I was oblivious to the conflagration. As the kilometres sailed by, I became strangely obsessed with the thought that Western Catholics were starving for good religious art. I suddenly knew I was.

As workers complete the rebuilding of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris after a devastating 2019 fire, LEGO fans can assemble their own model of the iconic medieval structure.