Paris, France, Dec 27, 2019 / 09:12 am (CNA).- This year Christmas Mass was not celebrated at Notre-Dame de Paris for the first time since the French First Republic, and the cathedral’s rector says that there is a significant chance the building cannot be rebuilt safely.
The church “is not out of danger,” Monsignor Patrick Chauvet said to the Associated Press Dec. 24. “It will be out of danger when we take out the remaining scaffolding.”
The scaffolding, which was present on the building prior to the April 15 fire due to restoration work, fused together during the blaze. There are an estimated 551 tons of metal still present on top of the cathedral.
“Today we can say that there is maybe a 50% chance (the cathedral) will be saved,” said Chauvet. “There is also (a) 50% chance of scaffolding falling onto the three vaults, so as you can see, the building is still very fragile,” he added.
The last time Christmas Mass was not celebrated at Notre-Dame was in 1803, the final Christmas under the French First Republic. In 1793, amid the French Revolution which established the republic, the cathedral was “re-dedicated” to the “Cult of Reason,” a state-created religion that was intended to replace Catholicism. It was returned to the Church in the early 19th century.
Chauvet said that once the scaffolding is removed, the restoration work will begin. He does not think that this will happen until 2021 at the earliest.
“We need to remove completely the scaffolding in order to make the building safe, so in 2021 we will probably start the restoration of the cathedral,” he said. “Once the scaffolding is removed, we need to assess the state of the cathedral, the quantity of stones to be removed and replaced.”
After the reconstruction begins, it will take about three years before the cathedral can be open to the public, Chauvet said. Although French President Emmanuel Macron vowed in the days after the fire that the cathedral would be rebuilt in time for the 2024 Summer Olympics, which will be hosted in Paris, this appears unlikely.
When the fire began, it was feared that the entire building could be lost. After 12 hours of firefighting, only the roof and spire were lost, and the majority of the stone vaults held. The vast majority of the treasures and relics that were stored in the cathedral, including the Crown of Thorns, were removed from church and were undamaged.
In addition to the structural damage caused by the fire, the flames also released a large amount of toxic lead dust due to the collapse of the spire. Levels of lead concentration in and around the cathedral are approximately 500 to 800 times the threshold for acceptable exposure levels.
Since the blaze, one Mass has been celebrated in the cathedral. On June 16, the anniversary of the dedication of the cathedral’s altar, a small Mass was celebrated in one of the side chapels that had not been damaged by the fire. All who attended had to wear protective hard hats during the Mass.
It is still undetermined what caused the fire. Authorities suggest it could have been either a cigarette or an electrical malfunction.
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Mother Elvira, the founder of the Comunità Cenacolo, based her efforts to help young people struggling with addiction around the concept of radical trust in God’s mercy and providence. / Courtesy of the Comunità Cenacolo
National Catholic Register, Aug 5, 2023 / 13:00 pm (CNA).
Mother Elvira Petrozzi, who founded Comunità Cenacolo in 1983 to provide hope and healing to those suffering from addiction, died on Aug. 3 in the formation house and residence of her congregation in Saluzzo, Italy. She was 86.
Her death, following a long illness, came just weeks after thousands of people gathered in Saluzzo, a hilltop town in Italy’s northwest Piedmont region about an hour’s drive south of Turin, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Cenacolo Community’s founding there in an abandoned home on July 16, 1983.
In the decades since, the community has grown to encompass 72 Cenacolo houses in 20 countries, including four in the United States.
Mother Elvira called the Cenacolo a “School of Life” because it took people off the streets and gave them a “rebirth” that was “based on a simple, family-oriented, orderly life” with the foundation of prayer, physical labor, discipline, and fraternal sharing.
“How could I invent a story like this? Everything happened without me even realizing it,” she once remarked.
“I dove into God’s mercy and I rolled up my sleeves to love, love, love … and serve!” she said. “I am the first to surprise myself with what has happened and what is happening in the life of the Cenacolo Community. It’s a work of God, the Holy Spirit, and of Mary.”
Bishop Robert Baker, bishop emeritus of Birmingham, Alabama, first met Mother Elvira in 1991. The two developed a close friendship and together they co-founded four Comunità Cenacolos in the U.S. Southwest, including one near Hanceville, Alabama.
Baker was among Mother Elvira’s many friends, supporters, and community members who were able to visit with her in her final days.
“I had the blessing of being invited to come to be at her bedside,” he told the National Catholic Register, CNA’s partner news outlet. “I was with her and I was able to give her a blessing.”
Humble beginnings
Born Rita Petrozzi, Mother Elvira was born in Sora, Italy, in 1937 and grew up in a poor family, taking the name Elvira upon entering the Sisters of Charity of St. Jeanne Antide Thouret as a teenager.
It wasn’t until 27 years later that she felt inspired to help young addicts and other youth to change their lives. Rooted in her Catholic faith and God’s love for every person, her methods were so effective that they led to others wanting a Comunità Cenacolo established in their region.
Prior to meeting her, Baker founded a drug addiction center called Our Lady of Hope Community in St. Augustine, Florida. Then visiting Rome when he was rector of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine, he learned of Mother Elvira, spoke with her, and at his invitation agreed to establish a Cenacolo community with her entire program at Our Lady of Hope in 1992. The two friends went on to co-found two other houses in the St. Augustine area and a fourth house in Alabama.
Baker celebrated one of the Masses for the thousands of people attending the 40th anniversary celebration in Saluzzo. In his homily, he reflected on the time when he arranged to use an ornamental nursery to raise funds for the Cenacolo program in Florida, but when community members arrived from Italy they explained that Mother Elvira had instructed them to rely instead on divine providence.
“It was the result of her own closeness to the Lord in the Eucharist, which enabled her to see the immensity of God’s love. And if God loves us so immensely, he will provide for us,” he said.
After 30 years, no one has gone hungry in that Florida house or any of the community’s houses. “The point being, she was right,” Baker said.
Mother Elvira, who died on Aug. 3, 2023, at age 86, was beloved for her infectious trust in God’s providence, her devotion to the Eucharist, and her burning desire to share God’s boundless love with those struggling in life. Courtesy of the Comunità Cenacolo
The daily schedule at these houses includes Mass, eucharistic adoration, Marian devotion with three rosaries minimum a day, and devotion to St. Joseph. Every day members pray simply: “St. Joseph, provide for us.”
“The heart of it is, of course, the Eucharist,” Baker explained.
“Part of Elvira’s training is to divest to get rid of the stuff you don’t need,” he said. “So, the divesting, the trust in divine providence, and then … the Eucharist, praying before the Lord. That’s where her greatest strength was — the Eucharist, where she had all these insights. [You] have to have the sense of God’s immense love, which she had from praying before the Eucharist. And then because you know God loves you immensely, he will provide for you.”
When Baker visited Mother Elvira shortly before her death, he noted upon entering the house a mosaic on the floor that spells out the words “Dio Provvede” (God Provides).
‘Consumed with God’s love’
Florida residents Sean and Elaine Corrigan, who met Mother Elvira in 2000, lived in her community for some time and served in its missions in Brazil.
The couple credits her for saving their marriage.
“She had an extraordinary impact on our lives and on our marriage,” Elaine Corrigan told the Register. “Mother Elvira was a person fully in love with her Savior. She knew, she accepted, and she believed completely in his merciful love, and her great desire was to share him with others.
“I wanted to run after her and soak up all that she had,” she continued. “When we met Mother Elvira, we knew we had encountered a woman completely consumed with the love of God. She knew in the core of her being that he could and would heal people. She shared this hope and mercy with everyone she met.”
Albino Aragno, who started with the Cenacolo more than 30 years ago and today is the director of Comunità Cenacolo America, said Mother Elvira taught him many valuable lessons.
“Mother Elvira always encouraged me. She reminded me that life is precious and that life needs to be lived fully … to never be afraid to do God’s will, and always trust in him,” he said.
“Because of this, I can say that in all these years I can see that our community has kept on going even through so many difficulties, because good always prevails!”
Albino’s wife, Joyce, said Mother Elvira had a profound effect on her from the very beginning.
“Mother Elvira said, ‘Lord, let me know your will in the moment you want me to do it.’ This pierced my heart the first time I heard it and moved me to try to live every moment of my life in surrender and abandonment to his will, as Jesus reveals it at that moment,” she explained.
“It’s so radically opposed to control and trusting ‘in my own understanding,’ as the Psalmist says — my own intellect, perception, and analysis. Jesus calls me to live totally in the moment, not depending on myself.”
Pope Francis paid tribute to the Comunità Cenacolo on its 40th anniversary following his July 16 Angelus reflection.
“I send my heartfelt greeting to the Cenacolo Community, which has been a place of hospitality and human promotion for 40 years,” the pope said. “I bless Mother Elvira, the bishop of Saluzzo, and all the fraternity and friends. What you do is good, and it is good that you exist! Thank you!”
Baker said he observed during a recent Mass how “in periods of the Church there are great saints that get us through the eras in which we live.”
He pointed to St. Benedict in the fourth century, the Dominicans and Franciscans in the 13th century during the Albigensian heresy, and St. Ignatius and the Jesuits in the 16th century at the time of the Reformation.
CNA Staff, Feb 17, 2021 / 03:00 am (CNA).- Pro-life activists are challenging a German municipality’s decision to ban them from praying in front of a pre-abortion advisory center.
Members of the 40 Days for Life in Pforzheim, southwest Germany, … […]
Dublin, Ireland, Jan 11, 2021 / 10:54 am (CNA).- After receiving thousands of complaints from citizens and vocal criticism from religious leaders, Ireland’s state broadcaster has apologized after a sketch on its New Year’s Eve programming j… […]
1 Comment
A Comment on The Holy family and the Unity of God’s Family. Notre Dame’s unprecedented crisis matches the crisis of the Christian Family. Lucia Dos Santos wrote 1983 then Pres Pont John Paul II Inst Studies on Family and Marriage Cardinal Caffarra in a widely known account that the Family would be the end times focus of Satan’s efforts. Editor Olson quotes John Paul II that “The family is the human communion by which life is received and love is given and then offered to others. The family is the core of social and relational life, and without it, humanity ceases to exist”. Lucia according to Cardinal Caffarra said Satan is constructing an anti creation agenda centered on the “sacred relation between Man and Woman” (Diane Montagna Aleteia). Olson notes the spread of same sex relationships in his 2007 article. Today we have a Roman Catholic Church that has virtually eradicated the legacy of John Paul II and is reevaluating homosexual behavior. The Holy Family is the centerpiece of Roman Catholicism attested to by that eminent father of the Church Saint Cyril of Alexandria. He identifies the Incarnation, the flesh and blood of Mary that enfleshed Jesus as the sacrament that conveys divinity and Unity. I add that the Real Presence evident in the love shared within the Holy Family mirrors the Trinity of Persons. Saint Cyril instructs us that the Holy Eucharist shared by the Christian body instills a communal bond of charity within us. Assault against this divinely instituted sacred unity of the Mystical Body is evident in the doctrines of Amoris Laetitia regarding Holy Communion for Adulterers, and other “irregular unions” implying cohabitation and homosexual relationships. Many, too many who attest to belief in Christ are in compliance with the Vatican’s New Paradigm believing if it’s from the Pontiff it must be divinely inspired. This is where the fiery crisis that threatens to reoccur and entirely destroy Notre Dame threatens the faith. Error can occur in non definitive non binding policy which is exactly the current crisis. All the more must we adhere to the witness of the Apostles and the splendid pure glow of divine love within the Holy family.
A Comment on The Holy family and the Unity of God’s Family. Notre Dame’s unprecedented crisis matches the crisis of the Christian Family. Lucia Dos Santos wrote 1983 then Pres Pont John Paul II Inst Studies on Family and Marriage Cardinal Caffarra in a widely known account that the Family would be the end times focus of Satan’s efforts. Editor Olson quotes John Paul II that “The family is the human communion by which life is received and love is given and then offered to others. The family is the core of social and relational life, and without it, humanity ceases to exist”. Lucia according to Cardinal Caffarra said Satan is constructing an anti creation agenda centered on the “sacred relation between Man and Woman” (Diane Montagna Aleteia). Olson notes the spread of same sex relationships in his 2007 article. Today we have a Roman Catholic Church that has virtually eradicated the legacy of John Paul II and is reevaluating homosexual behavior. The Holy Family is the centerpiece of Roman Catholicism attested to by that eminent father of the Church Saint Cyril of Alexandria. He identifies the Incarnation, the flesh and blood of Mary that enfleshed Jesus as the sacrament that conveys divinity and Unity. I add that the Real Presence evident in the love shared within the Holy Family mirrors the Trinity of Persons. Saint Cyril instructs us that the Holy Eucharist shared by the Christian body instills a communal bond of charity within us. Assault against this divinely instituted sacred unity of the Mystical Body is evident in the doctrines of Amoris Laetitia regarding Holy Communion for Adulterers, and other “irregular unions” implying cohabitation and homosexual relationships. Many, too many who attest to belief in Christ are in compliance with the Vatican’s New Paradigm believing if it’s from the Pontiff it must be divinely inspired. This is where the fiery crisis that threatens to reoccur and entirely destroy Notre Dame threatens the faith. Error can occur in non definitive non binding policy which is exactly the current crisis. All the more must we adhere to the witness of the Apostles and the splendid pure glow of divine love within the Holy family.