Scaffolding surrounds the damaged Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris April 15, 2021. Two years after a fire destroyed much of the church’s wooden structure, a fundraising group is urging people to sponsor a statue or gargoyle to help with reconstruction. (CNS photo/Benoit Tessier, Reuters)
By Deirdre C. Mays
Catholic News Service
A novel fundraising approach to restore one of the most iconic monuments in the world, Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, enables donors to have a piece of history.
On April 15, Friends of Notre-Dame de Paris unveiled an interactive website — restorenotredame.org — that allows people to donate by adopting or sponsoring pieces of precious art and artifacts that were damaged in a 2019 fire. Donors can engage with the objects of their choosing and select which they’d like to help restore, whether it is a painting or statue. Funds can also go toward the cathedral’s restoration as a whole if the person prefers.
The organization was established in 2017 to help cover the cost of repairing damages caused by time, pollution and the use of inferior stone used in the construction of the 12th-century Gothic landmark. The cathedral had not had any major repairs since the mid-1800s, so the group launched an international campaign to raise the $135 million needed for those essential renovations — augmented by a $45 million budget from the French government.
On April 15, 2019, a fire broke out in the attic and completely consumed the timber roof and spire. The burning debris and melted lead from the roof fell on top of a stone vault below. Most sections of the cathedral remained intact due to the rib vaulting, and most of the precious art and religious relics were saved, including what is believed to be Jesus’ crown of thorns and a piece of the cross from his crucifixion, the Tunic of St. Louis and the 14th-century Virgin of the Pillar statue.
After the fire, the mission of the Friends of Notre-Dame de Paris had an even greater scope — rebuilding from ashes. Since the fire, more than $1 billion from more than 150 countries has been pledged to rebuild the cathedral, said Michel Picaud, president of Friends of Notre-Dame.
Picaud said the item people feel most sentimental about is probably the Virgin of the Pillar, which “attracts the attention of believers because it is the Virgin Mary in all her beauty and significance.”
The May paintings are one of the top features of the restoration effort. They are a series of paintings commissioned in the 17th- and early 18th-century by the goldsmith’s guild of Paris to offer to the cathedral in the month of May. They are approximately three by four meters high and depict scenes from the Gospels. Smaller models of the paintings also were created. The fundraising process has helped reveal the location of some of those that were not in the cathedral collection.
