WelCom, September 2024
The bronze bell used for track and field competitions during the Paris Olympic Games will ring during every Mass at Notre Dame Cathedral when it reopens in December.
‘We were contacted a few months ago by the Paris Organising Committee, to see if we would be interested in this bell for Notre Dame,’ the cathedral’s rector-archpriest, Fr Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, told OSV News. ‘And we accepted this proposal.’
The bell, weighing 500kgs, was made for the Olympic Games by the Cornille Havard foundry, dubbed ‘the last bell makers of France’.
The foundry produces bells for France’s largest churches and cathedrals. In 2013, it produced nine new bells for Notre Dame to mark the cathedral’s 850th anniversary. Installed in Notre Dame’s north tower, their role was to ring for the cathedral’s daily services.
The same company was responsible for the restoration of eight of these nine bells after they had been damaged during the fire in April 2019.
The cathedral’s largest bell, known as ‘le bourdon Emmanuel’, is located in the south tower. It dates back to the time of King Louis XIV, at the end of the 17th century, and it rings for historic events, as it did at the end of both world wars. Emmanuel was not affected by the fire and on special occasions continued to be operated manually as the electrical system was fixed.
‘It has rung several times since the fire, at Easter and Christmas, and for special occasions such as the death of Pope Benedict XVI’ Fr Dumas said.
‘The Olympic Games bell is not destined to join those of two cathedral towers. It will join two other bells, newly cast by the same company, which will be placed inside the cathedral, in the gallery, not far from the organ. These three bells will ring together during Mass, at the moment of the consecration.’
Source: NCR