Month: December 2025

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Even in difficult situations and harsh places, like prisons, when people focus on caring for one another, respecting each other and offering forgiveness, “beautiful flowers spring forth from the ‘hard ground’ of sin and suffering,” Pope Leo XIV said.

Dressed in rose vestments for Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent, the pope celebrated Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica Dec. 15 for the Jubilee of Prisoners.

Inmates and former inmates — both adults and juveniles — from Italy, Spain, Portugal, Malta and Chile accompanied by guards and chaplains participated, as well as representatives from 85 other countries. It was the last of the major Jubilee events before Christmas and the closing of the Holy Year Jan. 6.

The hosts consecrated during the Mass were made by inmates at the Italian prisons of Opera, San Vittore and Bollate. They are part of a project that involves more than 300 inmates in prisons throughout Italy that regularly make hosts for 15,000 churches and parishes.

In his homily, Pope Leo acknowledged that living and working in a prison is difficult “and even the best proposals can encounter many obstacles.”

But inmates, staff and family members must never give up, he said. “No human being is defined only by his or her actions,” and “justice is always a process of reparation and reconciliation.”

Prisons, jails and detention facilities must keep working to address overcrowding and a lack of commitment to guaranteeing “stable educational programs for rehabilitation and job opportunities.”

“On a more personal level,” he told them, everyone involved must deal with “the weight of the past, the wounds to be healed in body and heart, the disappointments, the infinite patience that is needed with oneself and with others when embarking on paths of conversion, and the temptation to give up or to no longer forgive.”

For the Lord, though, “only one thing is important: that no one be lost and that all ‘be saved,'” Pope Leo said.

“Let no one be lost! Let all be saved! This is what our God wants, this is his kingdom, and this is the goal of his actions in the world,” he said. “As Christmas approaches, we too want to embrace more strongly his dream, while being steadfast and faithful in our commitment.”

Christians, he said, “know that even in the face of the greatest challenges, we are not alone: the Lord is near, he walks with us, and with him at our side, something beautiful and joyful will always happen.”

Reciting the Angelus at noon, Pope Leo quoted the introductory words to the day’s Mass: “‘Gaudete in Domino semper’ –- Rejoice in the Lord always.”

On Gaudete Sunday, the church calls believers to rejoice because “Jesus is our hope, especially in times of trial, when life seems to lose meaning and everything appears darker, words fail us, and we struggle to understand others.”

“The words of Jesus,” he said, “free us from the prison of despair and suffering. Every prophecy finds its expected fulfillment in him.”

Christ “gives voice to the oppressed and to those whose voices have been silenced by violence and hatred,” the pope said. “He defeats ideologies that make us deaf to the truth. He heals the ailments that deform the body.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Leo XIV prayed for Mary’s maternal intercession so that she would help nations avoid lies and hatred and instruct leaders to protect the dignity of all human life.

He also prayed that families find strength, young people find meaning and people of faith seek greater communion because “within the church, Mother, your children cannot be divided.”

In his homily at Mass for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe in St. Peter’s Basilica Dec. 12, Pope Leo also asked Mary to support him in his ministry as the successor of St. Peter and “grant that, trusting in your protection, we may advance ever more united, with Jesus and among ourselves, toward the eternal dwelling place that He has prepared for us and where you await us.”

While it was his first Mass marking the Marian feast day at the Vatican as pope, as Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, he had already served as the main celebrant at the altar during the Dec. 12 Mass in 2024 and 2023 when he was prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. Pope Francis had presided over both of those Masses, but due to bouts of illness, he remained seated during the celebrations and gave the homily.

Pope Leo, who spent more than two decades as a missionary in Peru, gave the homily in Spanish and recalled how the Marian apparitions in 1531 in Tepeyac, Mexico, awakened “in the inhabitants of America the joy of knowing that they are loved by God.”

Devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe is deeply rooted in Latin America. According to tradition, Mary appeared to St. Juan Diego, an Indigenous Mexican, and left her pregnant image imprinted on his cloak. It was said she assured him in his native language not to be afraid because, “Am I not here, who am your Mother?” offering protection, health and safety in the folds of her mantle.

“It is the voice that echoes the promise of divine fidelity, the presence that sustains when life becomes unbearable,” especially “amidst unceasing conflicts, injustices and pains that seek relief,” Pope Leo said.

Her motherhood “makes us discover ourselves as children,” and “as children, we will turn to her to ask” what must be done, especially “how to grow in faith when our strength fails and shadows grow,” the pope said. Referring to her son, Jesus, she will “tenderly reply: ‘Do whatever he tells you.'”

Pope Leo then prayed for Mary’s intercession, asking that she “teach nations that want to be your children not to divide the world into irreconcilable factions, not to allow hatred to mark their history or lies to write their memory.”

“Show them that authority must be exercised as service and not as domination,” he said. “Instruct their leaders in their duty to safeguard the dignity of every person during all stages of their life,” and may these people create places “where every person can feel welcome.”

He prayed that Mary would accompany young people so they could find strength in Christ “to choose what is good and the courage to remain firm in the faith, even when the world pushes them in another direction.”

“Show them that your Son walks beside them. May nothing afflict their hearts so that they may fearlessly welcome God’s plans,” he said, praying that she also help keep young people safe “from the threats of crime, addiction and the danger of a meaningless life.”

“Seek out, Mother, those who have strayed from the holy church,” he said. “May your gaze reach them where ours cannot, break down the walls that separate us, and bring them back home with the power of your love.”

Pope Leo then implored Mary to touch the hearts of those “who sow discord toward your Son’s desire that ‘they may all be one’ and restore them to the charity that makes communion possible, for within the church, Mother, your children cannot be divided.”

“Strengthen families,” he prayed. “Following your example, may parents educate their children with tenderness and firmness, so that every home may be a school of faith.”

He prayed that those who teach be inspired to share the truth “with the gentleness, precision and clarity that comes from the Gospel,” and he prayed that the clergy and consecrated men and women find support and encouragement to be faithful, prayerful and revitalized.

“Holy Virgin, may we, like you, keep the Gospel in our hearts,” he said, and help Christians understand “we are not the owners of this message, but, like St. Juan Diego, we are its simple servants.”

(OSV News) – As Dec. 12 approaches, millions of pilgrims are converging on the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, one of the most visited Marian shrines in the world. The feast honoring the Virgin of Guadalupe — celebrated across the Americas and in the Philippines — is again drawing crowds far beyond Mexico’s borders.

Authorities in Mexico City expect between 10 and 12 million pilgrims in the days surrounding the feast, with families, parish groups, dancers and torch runners arriving from across the country. Roads near the basilica have been closed, security forces deployed, and the familiar rituals – roses, mariachis and the midnight singing of Las Mañanitas (the traditional Mexican birthday song sung as a “serenade to the Virgin”) — once again signal the beginning of the hemisphere’s most visible Marian celebration.

According to tradition, in 1531 the Virgin Mary appeared to an Indigenous convert, St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, leaving her image on his cloak after he gathered Castilian roses as a sign for the bishop. The tilma, considered miraculous by millions, is displayed prominently at the basilica and remains a focal point for devotion nearly five centuries later. The cloth has been studied extensively — second only to the Shroud of Turin, some experts say — yet the image’s composition, including what appear to be 13 human figures reflected in the Virgin’s eyes, remains unexplained.

Each December, devotion centered at Tepeyac — the small hill where Mary is believed to have appeared and beside which the current basilica was built in 1976 — extends far beyond Mexico. In the United States, dioceses with significant Latino populations prepare for processions, early-morning Masses, Matachines dancers and parish serenades.

In New York, an official pilgrim image from Mexico City has been displayed at St. Patrick’s Cathedral since Dec. 1, drawing parish groups and visitors in the lead-up to the feast. Cardinal Timothy P. Dolan will celebrate Mass there on Dec. 12, following a pilgrimage through Manhattan. In the country’s capital, the Archdiocese of Washington will hold its annual “Walk with Mary” Dec. 13 — a procession that typically draws several thousand people — beginning at the Shrine of the Sacred Heart and concluding with a rosary and Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

On the West Coast, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles held its 94th annual Guadalupe Procession and Mass on Dec. 7, continuing one of the city’s oldest religious processions. The celebration followed a 2025 pilgrimage of the archdiocesan images of Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Juan Diego to more than 50 parishes.

On the feast’s eve, Indigenous dancers and mariachis will gather at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels for Las Mañanitas before a midnight Mass. In the Diocese of San Diego, a long-established procession through North Park and a bilingual Mass will continue a tradition of more than half a century near the U.S.-Mexico border.

Further east, the Diocese of St. Augustine in Florida — the site of the first Mass celebrated on what became U.S. territory in 1565 — will mark the feast with a Dec. 11 Mass celebrated by Bishop Erik Pohlmeier at St. Joseph Catholic Church, followed by Aguinaldo Masses leading up to Christmas Eve, echoing customs familiar in both Latin America and the Philippines.

Aguinaldo Masses are a series of dawn Masses celebrated from Mexico, through Spain and the Philippines for nine days before Christmas, starting Dec. 16, to honor Mary and prepare for Jesus’ birth, and are also known as Simbang Gabi in the Philippines.

“These examples reflect a devotion that began with Hispanic and Filipino immigrants but has continued to grow across the church in the United States,” said Gabriela Sakmar, president of the Detroit-based Federation of Associations of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

She told OSV News that the expansion of celebrations into parishes nationwide began “when Hispanic families set roots in this country” and requested that their pastors join them in honoring the feast.

“Bishops were quick to notice the devotion has been growing, and not only within the Hispanic or Filipino communities,” she said. “Our Lady of Guadalupe is the patroness of the U.S. right-to-life movement, and the Knights of Columbus have a strong devotion to her as well.”

Sakmar, who returns to Mexico annually though not in December — “too many people travel on those days,” she said with a laugh — sees Guadalupe as a “bridge” in a divided society.

“That was precisely the mission of the Morenita (“little dark-skinned”), to unite Mexico’s Indigenous population and the Spaniards,” she said. “These were two completely different worlds, and evangelization seemed impossible. Yet after her apparition, we saw some of the most numerous conversions in our history.” Some historians speak of over 10 million baptisms in the decades following the apparition.

“As a Hispanic,” Sakmar added, “whenever I see Our Lady of Guadalupe in a parish, I know that I am welcomed there.”

Throughout Latin America, Guadalupe’s image is displayed in homes and chapels from Patagonia to the Panama Canal. Processions in Guatemala, Ecuador and Colombia mirror Mexican customs, while murals and banners frequently invoke her as a protector of migrants and the poor.

In the Philippines — where Pope Pius XI named her patroness in 1935 — thousands of faithful are expected to visit the National Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Makati City throughout the novena and on Dec. 12 to pray for families, migrants and the protection of unborn life.

At the Vatican, the feast is marked annually with a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, a tradition begun under Pope John Paul II and continued by Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. In a 2019 homily, Pope Francis described Mary of Guadalupe as “woman, mother and mestiza,” a figure capable of uniting divided peoples. The celebration is expected to continue under Pope Leo XIV, who told reporters Nov. 18 that he hopes to visit both the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima and the Basilica of Guadalupe soon.

What distinguishes Guadalupe from other Vatican-approved Marian apparitions is not only its antiquity but its distinct iconography and cultural resonance. The image on the tilma — often read as combining Indigenous and Christian symbols — portrays a woman neither fully Spanish nor fully Indigenous, clothed with stars and standing before the sun and moon. Many Mexican Catholics regard her as the first symbol of a new mestizo identity forged after the Spanish conquest.

Over centuries, her figure has moved from church walls to the mainstream of culture. She appears on street art, lowriders, storefronts, T-shirts and Mexican tortillas. Her image has been adopted by musicians, athletes, tattoo artists, and even gangs or drug traffickers — a sign, clergy often note, of the deep imprint she has left on the Mexican imagination, even when misused. For many ordinary Catholics, however, she remains a sign of protection, maternal closeness and identity.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The secret to living an authentic life is praying to understand what is truly beneficial according to God’s plan and letting go of the superfluous, Pope Leo XIV said.

In fact, death “can be a great teacher of life. To know that it exists, and above all to reflect on it, teaches us to choose what we really want to make of our existence,” the pope said Dec. 10 at his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square.

“Praying, in order to understand what is beneficial in view of the kingdom of heaven, and letting go of the superfluous that instead binds us to ephemeral things, is the secret to living authentically, in the awareness that our passage on earth prepares us for eternity,” he said.

It was the pope’s first general audience after returning from his first apostolic trip, a visit to Turkey and Lebanon Nov. 27-Dec. 2. An 82-foot-tall Christmas tree, which arrived Nov. 27 and will be fully decorated and unveiled with the Nativity scene Dec. 15, could be seen near the obelisk in the square.

Instead of using his general audience talk to recap his trip as had been the custom of his immediate predecessors, the pope did so after reciting the Angelus Dec. 7. At the audience, he continued his series of talks on the Jubilee theme of “Jesus our hope,” focusing on “death in the light of the Resurrection.”

“Our present culture tends to fear death and seeks to avoid thinking about it, even turning to medicine and science in search of immortality,” Pope Leo said in his English-language remarks.

However, Jesus’ victory of passing from death to life with his Resurrection “illuminates our own mortality, reminding us that death is not the end, but a passing from this life into eternity,” he said. “Therefore, death is not something to be feared, but rather a moment to prepare for.”

“It is an invitation to examine our lives and so live in such a way that we may one day share not only in the death of Christ, but also in the joy of eternal life,” the pope said.

“The event of the Resurrection of Christ reveals to us that death is not opposed to life, but rather is a constitutive part of it, as the passage to eternal life,” he said in his main catechesis in Italian.

“He has prepared for us the place of eternal rest, the home where we are awaited; he has given us the fullness of life in which there are no longer any shadows and contradictions,” Pope Leo said.

Awaiting death “with the sure hope of the Resurrection preserves us from the fear of disappearing forever and prepares us for the joy of life without end,” he said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Vatican’s fat red yearbook, known as the Annuario Pontificio, will now be available and updated regularly on an app and online.

The digital platform “will guarantee reliable and immediate access to certified content, promoting an accurate and documented account of the life of the church,” the Vatican Secretariat of State said in a press release Dec. 9.

The pontifical yearbook lists: all Vatican offices and staff; the world’s dioceses and mission territories; bishops, cardinals and international religious orders of men and women; papal diplomats and ambassadors to the Vatican; historical notes, such as a list of the popes and their years in office, and more.

Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, substitute for general affairs in the secretariat, and others met with Pope Leo XIV Dec. 6 to present the initiative and to let him try searching the platform on a tablet.

“Thank you for this work, which will be of great use to so many people who work serving the church,” the pope told those present. “I encourage you to continue in this spirit of service, so that what is established with care and attention may become an even greater help over time.”

Archbishop Parra said, “The digitization of the Pontifical Yearbook represents a significant step in the renewal of the Holy See’s tools of service. At a time when communication is increasingly rapid and global, offering immediate and reliable access to information on the life of the church — with certified data — means putting technology at the service of the church’s mission.”

The thick, hardcover yearbook typically numbers more than 2,500 pages and is available only in Italian. Printed once a year, the Vatican used to send out changes and updates once or twice a month via email and post them online. Officials from the Secretariat of State are responsible for updating the volume.

Now, as a digital resource, information will be revised and updated more often, the secretariat’s press release said.

After creating an account online and paying the annual subscription fee ($79), the online version is available at annuariopontificio.catholic or on an app optimized for smartphones and tablets.

After the initial rollout, the platform will add expanded capabilities, such as other languages and past data for archival purposes.

The hardcopy volume will still be published, the secretariat said, because of the historical value of such documentation.

(OSV News) – Religious affiliation in the U.S. is “holding steady,” with recent steep declines leveling off — but there’s no evidence a religious revival is underway, and Christianity continues to lose more members than it gains, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center.

On Dec. 8, the center released an analysis of data from its annual National Public Opinion Reference Surveys, as well as data from its 2023-2024 U.S. Religious Landscape Study, which polled close to 37,000 randomly sampled adults.

In addition, Pew drew on data from the General Social Survey, conducted by NORC (formerly the National Opinion Research Center) at the University of Chicago; and the American Time Use Survey by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The combined data indicates that “key measures of religiousness” — such as belief, prayer and communal worship — have continued to remain level over the past five years.

Since 2020, about 70% of U.S. adults have indicated they identify with a religion, said Pew.

Similar levels of stability have been reported for daily prayer (now about 46%), the importance of religion in respondents’ lives (currently 43%) and attendance at religious services at least once or twice a month (34% as of 2025).

That “recent stability” is “striking because it comes after a prolonged period of religious decline,” said Pew, which noted that “for decades, measures of religious belonging, behaving and believing had been dropping nationwide.”

The previous long-term declines “were driven largely by generational shifts,” said Pew.

Older “birth cohorts” — those born during the same time period, a more specific measure than the broader term “generation” — tend to be “highly religious,” said Pew.

As members of older birth cohorts have died, “they’ve been replaced in the population by younger cohorts of adults who are far less religious” — and at the same time, those across birth cohorts “have grown less religious as they have aged,” the report said.

Amid slight year-to-year shifts, “no birth cohort has become more or less religious in recent years,” said Pew.

In fact, said Pew, “On average, young adults remain much less religious than older Americans.”

“Over the past five years, those born in 1954 or earlier have consistently said they identify with a religion (now 83%), pray daily (now 59%), regard religion as very important to their lives (now 55%) and attend religious services at least monthly (43% in 2025).

Those born in the period 1995-2002 have remained much less religious, with slightly more than half (55%) identifying with a religion, under a third (30%) praying daily and ranking religion as important to their lives (32%), and just over a quarter (26%) attending religious services at least monthly as of 2025.

Pew said that “today’s young adults also are less religious than young people were a decade ago.”

While “some media reports have suggested there may be a religious revival taking place among young adults, especially young men,” Pew said its polls, along with other high-quality survey data, “show no clear evidence that this kind of nationwide religious resurgence is underway.”

In particular, and despite claims to the contrary, “there is no indication that young men are converting to Christianity in large numbers,” said Pew.

At the same time, said Pew, “it’s possible smaller changes are happening in some places that just aren’t widespread enough to show up in national surveys.”

Pew also found that although “some recent reports suggest that young people are increasingly turning to traditional forms of Christianity, such as Orthodox Christianity and Catholicism,” the data continues to show that “among both younger and older U.S. adults, Christianity loses far more people than it gains through religious switching.”

“Overall, 1% of U.S. adults ages 18 to 24 now identify as Orthodox Christians after having been
raised in another religion or with no religion,” but “an equal share of these adults has left Orthodoxy,” said Pew.

And “when it comes to Catholicism, far more young people have switched out than in,” Pew reported.

While “12% of today’s youngest adults have switched out of Catholicism,” just “1% of adults ages 18 to 24 have switched into Catholicism, meaning that they identify as Catholic today after having been raised in another religion or no religion.”

But for “nones” — defined by Pew as those who identify themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” in terms of religious affiliation — “this ratio is reversed.”

A quarter of adults ages 18-24 have become “nones” after being raised otherwise, and “far fewer young adults have left the ‘nones'” having been raised as such, said Pew.

Still, the report pointed out that “there are some interesting things happening with religion among young people.”

Young men are “now about as religious as women in the same age group,” which marks “a notable change from the past, when the reverse was the case, said Pew.

That pattern also contrasts with one detected among older people, where women are “much more religious” than their male counterparts, the report said.

But, said Pew, the “narrowing of the gender gap” in religiousness among younger men and women isn’t due to men becoming more religious — rather, the switch is “driven by declining religiousness among American women,” said Pew.

The report also highlighted nuances in religiousness among younger birth cohorts, noting that “today’s youngest adults (people born in 2003 or later) are no less religious than slightly older people born between 1995 and 2002.”

And, said Pew, “in some ways, today’s youngest adults are more religious than today’s second-youngest adults.”

In its 2023-2024 Religious Landscape Survey, Pew noted that “30% of adults born between 2003 and 2006 say they attend religious services at least once a month,” while among those born between 1995 and 2002 the number was just under one quarter (24%).

Pew’s 2025 National Public Opinion Reference Survey in 2025 found a similar pattern, but the center cautioned in its report the sample size for respondents born in 2003 or later was very small (just 154).

However, said Pew, previous Religious Landscape Surveys have shown that gaps between the two cohorts have emerged over time, with religious attendance dropping among both groups as they aged, and declining more quickly among the youngest group.

“These patterns may reflect the fact that many of the youngest adults still live in their childhood homes and follow the religious customs of their families,” said Pew. “As they get older and more of them leave home, their religious habits may change.”

For that reason, “we shouldn’t assume that the religiousness of today’s youngest adults is a sign of a major shift in American religion,” said Pew. “Perhaps in the future we’ll look back and see that we were at a pivotal moment in 2025.”

But, said Pew, “Historical data suggests the patterns we see today are a normal result of the youngest adults possibly following the religiousness of their parents for a few years past the age of 18, after which their religiousness begins to drop.”

ROME (CNS) – Celebrating the feast of the Immaculate Conception as the Jubilee Year was ending, Pope Leo XIV prayed that “Jubilee hope” would “blossom in Rome and in every corner of the earth,” bringing with it reconciliation, nonviolence and peace.

Standing near the Spanish Steps in central Rome, at the foot of a towering column topped by a statue of Mary, the pope led thousands of Romans, pilgrims and tourists in prayer Dec. 8.

At dawn that morning, a firefighter named Roberto Leo, the fire service’s longest serving department head in Rome, climbed up 100 rungs of an aerial ladder to place a wreath of white flowers on the outstretched arms of the statue about 90 feet above the ground.

Following a tradition begun in 1958 by St. John XXIII, Pope Leo blessed a basket of white roses that assistants placed at the foot of the statue and read a prayer specifically written for this year’s feast, with references to what is going on in the church, the city and the world.

In the prayer to Mary, Pope Leo noted that the Jubilee year brought millions of pilgrims to Rome, representing “a humanity tried, at times crushed, humble like the earth from which God shaped it and into which he never ceases to breathe his Spirit of life.”

“Look, O Mary, upon the many sons and daughters in whom hope has not been extinguished: May what your Son has sown sprout within them — he, the living Word who in each person asks to grow still more, to take on flesh, face and voice,” the pope prayed.

As the Holy Doors of the major basilicas of Rome are about to close at the end of the Jubilee Jan. 6, he said, “may other doors now open: doors of homes and oases of peace where dignity may flower again, where nonviolence is taught, where the art of reconciliation is learned.”

The pope prayed that Mary would “inspire new insights in the church that walks in Rome and in the particular churches that in every context gather the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of our contemporaries — especially the poor and all who suffer.”

Pope Leo also expressed the hope that baptism, which washes every person free of original sin, would “bring forth holy and immaculate men and women, called to become living members of the Body of Christ — a body that acts, consoles, reconciles and transforms the earthly city where the city of God is being prepared.”

In a world filled with “changes that seem to find us unprepared and powerless,” he asked Mary to intercede and help.

“Inspire dreams, visions and courage, you who know better than anyone that nothing is impossible for God, and at the same time that God does nothing alone,” he prayed.

The pope also asked Mary to help the church always be “with and among the people, leaven in the dough of a humanity that cries out for justice and hope.”

Before heading to the Spanish Steps, the pope had led the recitation of the Angelus prayer at noon with visitors in St. Peter’s Square.

By preserving Mary from any stain of sin from the moment of her conception, he said, God granted her “the extraordinary grace of a completely pure heart, in view of an even greater miracle: the coming of Christ the savior into the world as man.”

That extraordinary grace bore extraordinary fruit, he said, “because in her freedom she welcomed it, embracing the plan of God.”

“The Lord always acts in this way: he gives us great gifts, but he leaves us free to accept them or not,” the pope said. “So, this feast, which makes us rejoice for the unsullied beauty of the Mother of God, also invites us to believe as she believed, giving our generous assent to the mission to which the Lord calls us.”

PARIS (OSV News) – Notre Dame de Paris celebrated the first anniversary of its reopening Dec. 7 with a major milestone: more than 11 million people have visited the iconic cathedral in the past 12 months. The cathedral had been closed since April 15, 2019, when a fire destroyed much of the iconic structure. It was reopened Dec. 7, 2024, amid much fanfare. Prior to the fire, an estimated 8 to 9 million people visited the cathedral each year.

For the cathedral’s rector, Msgr. Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, this year has been “extremely rich,” while also being “a year of fine-tuning in terms of organization.” “We had to relearn how to run the cathedral,” he explained. “We had to rebuild what you might call the ‘family’ of the cathedral, which has grown since the restoration work.”

Today, the cathedral employs eight priests and one deacon, 45 staff members, 310 active volunteers, and more than 50 people responsible for the cathedral’s security operations.

“All are motivated by the same desire to welcome visitors,” Msgr. Ribadeau Dumas explained. “I am struck by the efforts of everyone, including external service providers, to welcome them with a smile, thus giving the cathedral a smiling face!”

On average, 30,000 to 35,000 visitors from all over the world enter the cathedral every day.

“This does not prevent the cathedral from being a sanctuary where one can find silence and peace,” the rector said. “All our efforts are aimed at introducing visitors to the mystery of this cathedral, which is first and foremost a place of prayer.”

During the course of the year, 1,600 liturgical services were celebrated at Notre Dame, during which visitors continued to wander through the side aisles and behind the choir.

“Their numbers were slightly reduced during services to preserve the contemplation of the faithful,” the rector explained.

Since its reopening, Notre Dame has taken on a new dimension as a pilgrimage destination. “This is new, and it is growing,” Msgr. Ribadeau Dumas told OSV News. “Many dioceses in France now organize pilgrimages to Notre Dame.”

In total, more than 650 pilgrimages took place, a third of which were from abroad, including 60 from North America.

“Americans have always shown great interest and generosity toward Notre Dame,” Msgr. Ribadeau Dumas noted. “It is important that they be able to come here.”

For the rector, the richness of this year lay in the diversity of the people who entered the cathedral. “We welcomed many patrons and heads of state with some 600 protocol visits,” he said. “But we have welcomed with the same care many elderly or sick people, associations for people with disabilities, in precarious situations or isolated. Our Lady is Our Lady of humanity, of all humanity,” he emphasized.

For the rector, it is of high importance that entry to the cathedral remains free, and he insisted that visitors should not be categorized as tourists or pilgrims.

“Many who entered as simple visitors came out having had a truly spiritual experience,” he said, referring to the “spiritual fruits” of the visits he has witnessed this year. “We did not expect it to this extent. What happens to each person at Notre Dame is the secret of the Holy Spirit, but something happens. Some were touched very deeply.”

According to testimonies, the passage in front of the reliquary of the crown of thorns, behind the choir, moved visitors deeply throughout the year.

“It is the most important relic in Christianity, and it is very evocative,” the rector noted. Msgr. Ribadeau Dumas proposed a major change for 2026, which went into effect on Dec. 5: The crown of thorns will now be displayed every Friday of the year, from 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., and no longer only on Fridays during Lent and on the first Friday of the month, as was the case until now.

The crown of thorns, placed on Jesus’ head by his captors to cause him pain and mock his claim of authority, was acquired by St. Louis, then-King Louis IX of France, in Constantinople in 1239 for 135,000 livres — nearly half of France’s annual expenditure at the time, according to the BBC.

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

Many visitors were also struck this year by the discovery of the cathedral’s 29 side chapels, which have been completely restored and refurbished with a new identity and coherence.

Throughout the years, Chinese visitors discovered the St. Paul Chen chapel, honoring the 19th-century Chinese seminarian later canonized by St. John Paul II. Mexicans and other Latin Americans found the renovated post-World War II chapel of the Virgin of Guadalupe. On May 28, a new chapel for Eastern Christians — home to eight icons — was inaugurated. And on Nov. 8, the restored icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa returned to her chapel during a Mass for the Polish community.

“Everyone should be able to come home and say, ‘this is our Notre Dame,'” the rector said.

A year into reopening, Notre Dame is a “living cathedral,” he added. “When I celebrated Mass there for the first time a year ago, I strongly felt that these stones had witnessed centuries and centuries of prayers before mine. Since then, praying there every day, I know that I am continuing what has been accomplished by the generations that preceded us.”

On Nov. 29, the rector blessed a large Nativity scene featuring 150 figurines from Provence, in southern France, and on the same day the Christmas market opened at the cathedral square. It brings together French artisans and creators. In the evening, the illuminated facade of Notre Dame lights up a square joyfully occupied by musicians and singers, where tastings of typical French regional cuisine delight everyone.