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PARIS — The first eight oak trees destined to replace the destroyed spire of Paris’s scorched Notre Dame cathedral have been selected from the Bercé forest in the French Loire region, church officials said on Friday. The iconic, 315 foot spire was completely destroyed in the fire that ravaged the Paris monument in 2019. It was made by architect Viollet-le-Duc in 1859. “It is a source of pride for the foresters of the National Forestry Office to participate in the rebirth of Notre-Dame de Paris,” said Forestry Office Director Bertrand Munch.

A leak in the French media suggested the rebuilding of the interior of the cathedral is tilting towards a more contemporary style, but the Archdiocese of Paris insists no decision will be made before the end of March.PARIS, France — Six months after the end of a long and fierce controversy surrounding the terms for the rebuilding of the roof and spire of Notre-Dame, a new national outcry has erupted after part of the rebuilding project for the interior of the monument, severely damaged by the 2019 blaze, was leaked to the press. Indeed, according to an article by Le...

Farid Ikken, an Algerian, had pledged allegiance to Daesh before his act The Paris Special Assize Court on Wednesday sentenced Farid Ikken to twenty-eight years in prison for attacking police officers with a hammer and wounding one of them in front of Notre-Dame Cathedral in June 2017, after pledging allegiance to Daesh. The 43-year-old Algerian student, whose sentence comes with a two-thirds security period, was also sentenced to a permanent ban from French territory. The Special Assize Court of Paris followed the requisitions of the Advocate General, who had called for severely punishing a man who she said had become...

The spire of Notre Dame cathedral, which was destroyed in a fire last April, will be restored according to the original Gothic design. French President Emmanuel Macron announced the decision, putting an end to speculation that the spire would be rebuilt in a modern style. Mr Macron had previously hinted he was in favour of a "contemporary gesture". However he has said he wants the restoration to be completed by 2024, when Paris is hosting the Olympics. The Elysée said Mr Macron's main concern was "not delaying the reconstruction and making it complicated - things had to be cleared up...

Anyone hoping to see the Notre Dame's fire-wrecked spire rise from the ashes as a gleaming, ultra-modern version of its former self may be set for disappointment. France's new culture minister Roselyne Bachelot has weighed into one of the country's most contentious national debates by declaring that Notre Dame should be rebuilt to look "identical" to how it did before last year's blaze. Speaking on French radio Thursday morning, just days after assuming her government post, Bachelot said that there was "broad consensus" that the cathedral's roof and spire should not undergo a contemporary redesign. "A broad consensus is emerging...

While the spire did not survive - it crashed down at the height of the conflagration - the scaffolding did. In fact in the intense heat, a lot of it melted and became attached to the building, like a great metal parasite. Now begins the exceedingly delicate operation of cutting away this metal, all 20 tons of it. The damaged scaffolding has been surrounded with yet more scaffolding, and an enormous crane has been brought in. Teams hanging from ropes 40 to 50 metres (130-164ft) in the air will be using electric saws to carve away the encrusted material piece...

Investigators still don't have access to the area where the fire beganOne year ago today, the world watched in horror as a fire swept through Paris’s iconic Notre Dame Cathedral, sending its spire crumbling to the ground, caving in its ceiling, and setting alight its historic interior. And now, with the country on lockdown, restoration efforts on the Gothic building have been put on hold, forcing a team of 100 engineers, scientists, architects, and archeologists to cease their tireless work on the damaged structure. The target date for completing the complex and delicate restoration has always been 2024, in time...

Paris, France, Apr 14, 2020 / 11:01 pm (CNA).- For Fr. Pierre Amar, Notre-Dame de Paris has always been a masterpiece, “the very example of supreme beauty,” but now the Marian cathedral is also “a great burnt victim.” One year after the fire destroyed much of the cathedral’s roof and spire, the French priest shared what the cathedral of Paris has meant and continues to mean for Catholics in France as the country again faces a crisis. “Notre-Dame is a great lady of history. She has lived through centuries, eras, perils, and war. She has sustained the nation in its...

PARIS, France - Still damaged and scarred by fire, Notre Dame Cathedral came back to life - if only for a fleeting instant - as a center for prayer on Friday in a Paris locked down against the coronavirus. Just days before the first anniversary of the April 15, 2019, inferno that ravaged the beloved Paris landmark, the French capital’s archbishop led Good Friday celebrations unlike any that have gone before inside the centuries-old jewel of Gothic architecture. Archbishop Michel Aupetit and three clergymen who accompanied him wore hard hats as they entered the damaged cathedral that is closed to...

Paris, France, Apr 7, 2020 / 07:00 am (CNA).- One year after the world watched the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris burn, the Archbishop of Paris will display the relic of Christ’s crown of thorns for veneration during a Good Friday broadcast. “When Mary is at the foot of the cross, she knows that from the most absolute evil God can always draw a much greater good," Archbishop Michel Aupetit of Paris said in an online press conference on April 7. “I do not see any meaning in the cathedral fire or the COVID-19 epidemic. On the other hand, I...

French architects want the roof of the fire-ravaged Notre-Dame Cathedral to be rebuilt in wood and not in metal or concrete. Advertising One of the heads of the country’s biggest architects’ body said reconstructing the roof in anything other than the original wood would be a mistake. The intervention by Eric Wirth of the Guild of French Architects comes amid controversy over French President Emmanuel Macron’s wish for the spire of the 13th-century monument to be given a “contemporary” touch. “The most modern and ecological material today is wood,” Wirth said Wednesday, which, as well as being more fire-resistant than...

PARIS (AP) — The rector of Notre Dame Cathedral says the Paris landmark is still so fragile that there’s a “50% chance” the structure might not be saved, because scaffolding installed before this year’s fire is threatening the vaults of the Gothic monument. Monsignor Patrick Chauvet said restoration work isn’t likely to begin until 2021 — and described his “heartache” that Notre Dame couldn’t hold Christmas services this year, for the first time since the French Revolution. “Today it is not out of danger,” he told The Associated Press on the sidelines of Christmas Eve midnight Mass in a nearby...

PARIS - Notre Dame kept Christmas going even during two world wars - a beacon of hope amid the bloodshed. Yet, an accidental fire in peacetime finally stopped the cathedral from celebrating Midnight Mass this year, the first time in over two centuries. As the lights stay dim in the once-invincible 855-year-old Paris landmark, officials are trying hard to focus on the immediate task of keeping burnt-out Notre Dame’s spirit alive in exile through service, song and prayer. It has decamped its rector, famed statue, liturgy and Christmas celebrations to a new temporary home pending the restoration works, just under...

It has decamped its rector, famed statue, liturgy and Christmas celebrations to a new temporary home pending the restoration works, just under a mile away, at another Gothic church in Paris called Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois. And there it will remain, as works slowly progress to rebuild the cathedral after the April 15 fire destroyed its lead roof and spire and was moments away from engulfing its two stone towers. “This is the first time since the French Revolution that there will be no midnight Mass (at Notre Dame),” cathedral rector Patrick Chauvet told The Associated Press. Cathedral officials carefully chose Saint-Germain...

Paris, France, Nov 15, 2019 / 12:35 am (CNA).- Tensions are reportedly running high between French authorities overseeing the rebuilding of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, as they create plans to rebuild the church damaged by fire earlier this year. Army General Jean-Louis Georgelin and the architect on the project, Philippe Villeneuve, disagree over whether the cathedral's new spire should look modern or medieval, the BBC reports. Georgelin, at a meeting of the French National Assembly's cultural affairs committee late Wednesday, reportedly told the architect that he should “shut his mouth” over the spire’s design, adding that a final decision on...

aris (AFP) - The Notre-Dame cathedral will host its first mass this weekend since a fire ravaged the Paris landmark almost two months ago, the city's diocese said Tuesday. The mass -- led by Archbishop of Paris Michel Aupetit -- will be celebrated on a very small scale late Saturday, the diocese said. It will take place in a "side chapel with a restricted number of people, for obvious security reasons," it said. Just 20 people are expected to take part, including priests and canons from the cathedral. The event will be broadcast live by a French television channel so...

Stockholm-based architecture firm Ulf Mejergren Architects (UMA) has proposed a giant swimming pool that spans the whole roof of the Notre-Dame cathedral which was exposed to a devastating fire on April 15, 2019. During the fire, the roof of the cathedral was severely damaged and the spire collapsed in front of the crowd. Following this heart-wrenching fire, the French government announced that they would launch an international competition soon to design a new spire that "is adapted to the techniques and the challenges of our era". However, although the international competition has not officially been announced yet, international architects started...

The Hypocrisy Behind Calling Out Notre Dame 'Truthers' After the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers on September 11, there was a group of people — mostly those of the America-hating variety — who did not believe that Muslim terrorists were behind the attacks. Rather, they thought President George W. Bush and the high members of the military-industrial complex, motivated by greed and power, perpetuated a narrative about Muslim terrorists to cover for the truth that it was really they who had directed the attacks. These people became known as "truthers." Writer and editor Cathy Young now assigns...

Macron says Notre Dame should be rebuilt in line with diversity; architect suggests an Islamic minaret be included France flagged “more than 78,000 people” as jihadist security threats in 2017; three churches a day are attacked there; anti-Semitism is so prevalent (and violent) in France that it prompted the President of the Confederation of Jews in France to conclude that “in a few decades, there will be no Jews in France.” But none of these facts have troubled globalist Emanuel Macron (and company), whose focus is on making everyone feel welcome in France, no matter what. Never mind those who...

Sandra Airey, the one who has discussed the Great Monarch before on Free Republic, shares her views about the burning of Notre Dame and how prophecy has predicted this time will come. She identifies the real culprit in the burning in Paris based on the prophecy of Alois Irhmaier (1894-1959) who said ”The large city with the high iron tower is on fire. But this has been done by their own people, not by those, which came from the East.” What did Alois mean when he said “this has been done by their own people”?Sandra goes on to say that...