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Inside the restoration of Notre-Dame: a labor of love and faith
As Pope Leo XIV visits the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, André Finot, who witnessed the 2019 fire and spent six years alongside those who rebuilt Notre Dame, shares with Vatican News its extraordinary restoration and the faith that sustained it.
By Deborah Castellano Lubov – Paris
On the night Notre-Dame burned, André Finot was there. He entered the cathedral as the fire began and took what would become the last photograph of Notre-Dame before the flames consumed its roof and spire.
For nearly a decade, Mr. Finot had served as the cathedral’s communications manager. He would then spend the next six years closely following its reconstruction, alongside the architects, craftsmen and thousands of workers who painstakingly brought the historic cathedral back to life.
The Cathedral of Notre Dame
Today, Mr. Finot serves as communications manager for Friends of Notre-Dame de Paris, the charity founded in 2016 to help preserve the cathedral.
In an interview with Vatican News, he looks back on the fire, the extraordinary restoration that followed, and the profound attachment he witnessed among the people who rebuilt a place that, for many of them, became much more than a building.
Q: Mr. Finot, could you explain to us about the Friends of Notre-Dame? For those who are unfamiliar, what exactly does it do, and what has it done?
In 2016, I met Andrew Tallon, a professor of art history in New York who was studying the cathedral. He told me that Notre-Dame was in very bad condition and that we needed to create a charity in the United States to raise money to save it. He said that if we did nothing, the building could collapse within ten years. This was three years before the fire. I met with Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, then Archbishop of Paris, who thought it was a fantastic idea. Michel Picaud, who is now president of Friends of Notre-Dame de Paris, then volunteered to help create the charity with me. After about two years, we had raised €8 million and begun restoration work on the cathedral’s spire. Then, on April 15, 2019, the fire happened. I was on the square outside Notre-Dame because I had a meeting with American Express that day. I was among the people who entered the cathedral, and I took what became the last photograph of Notre-Dame before the fire.
Last known photo of the Cathedral of Notre Dame (copyright: André Finot)
In total, we eventually raised €840 million, largely in France but also in the United States and around the world, to save and restore the cathedral over six and a half years. Three weeks after the fire, Michel Picaud and I went to New York, where we were incredibly warmly received. Notre-Dame is an icon. It isn’t only Catholic or French. It belongs to humanity.
Q: When you said that you had taken that last photo, how incredibly emotional that must have been for you. What was your emotion at that moment, seeing the fire?
It was strange because there had been no fire alarm until about ten days before the fire, when they conducted tests. The fire happened on April 15, 2019, Easter Monday. The day before was Palm Sunday, when Notre-Dame was filled with people. When the alarm sounded, I went inside Notre-Dame. At first, there was nothing to see, so I took the picture and sent it to the architect, joking, “Thank you for your alarm, because the Masses had to stop.” We only discovered that there was actually a fire about twenty minutes later.
The Cathedral of Notre Dame after the restoration (@VaticanNews)
Q: What does the Cathedral of Notre-Dame mean for the people of France today, and as Pope Leo XIV visits?
We are very proud to welcome the Pope. The French don’t go to Mass as much as they once did, perhaps only two percent attend every Sunday, but we still have a special affection for the Popes. So we are very happy that Pope Leo is visiting France. Notre-Dame has always been enormously important to France.
We sometimes say that Notre-Dame is the Cathedral of France. It is one of the most visited historical monuments in Europe, welcoming millions of visitors every year. It is an icon. It represents France, and we are very proud that Pope Leo is coming to the cathedral and meeting the clergy and the people who worked on its reconstruction.
Q: What significance do you think Pope Leo’s presence in France carries for the faithful, and for the country, also in the wake of the devastation and rebirth of Notre-Dame?
Notre-Dame seemed destined to collapse, and yet it was rebuilt. Perhaps Pope Leo sees something similar in the life of the Church and the decline in Mass attendance in France. I go to Mass, but I’m not speaking for all French people. Many don’t. Perhaps he is hoping for a resurrection of the faith, in the same way that we witnessed the resurrection of the cathedral.
Q: There’s been much discussion about the extraordinary dedication of the craftsmen and workers after the fire. Did you see a spiritual dimension to their work, a sense that they were doing something more than simply restoring a building?
I was very lucky to spend six years with these workers. There were around 4,000 people involved in the reconstruction, and I was incredibly proud to be with them. The day after the fire, I went inside with the firefighters and the architect. The choir and transepts were devastated. The altar, pulpit and so much else had been destroyed. But one thing survived: the statue of the Virgin Mary. It is a representation of Notre-Dame herself. For two or three weeks, they left the statue in place before moving it to a chapel. During the months it remained there, the workers would come every morning and say hello to the Virgin Mary. They were very sad when the statue had to be moved for restoration.
Then, in 2022, I decided to put a Nativity scene inside the cathedral for Christmas. The workers were so happy and thanked me. Some told me, “We are Jewish, Muslim, atheist—we are nothing—but we are so proud to work for the cathedral. This is the house of the Mother of God, and we are proud to be here.” Everyone was proud to be working on the cathedral. For them, it was much more than simply restoring a building.
The statue of the Blessed Mother that survived the 2019 fire inside Notre Dame
There is another moment I will never forget. In the middle of the cathedral, high above, there was an oculus with a painting of the Virgin Mary holding the Baby Jesus. Three months before the reopening, the workers were on the scaffolding and saw the restored image. They were incredibly proud. Some of them were crying. I was there with them, and I thought, “I’m not the only one who cries over these things.”
Q: Can you take us behind the scenes of the reconstruction of Notre-Dame itself? What does it actually take to restore a cathedral like Notre-Dame after such a devastating fire?
It takes courage, and in particular the courage of one man: Philippe Villeneuve, the architect of Notre-Dame. He had loved the cathedral since he was a child. When he was ten, his mother brought him to Notre-Dame, and he immediately decided he wanted to become an architect. As a teenager, he even built a huge model of the cathedral. When he became the architect of Notre-Dame in 2012, he believed the cathedral was already perfect and that he wouldn’t need to change anything. On the night of the fire, I sent him that last photograph. He was on the west coast of France, so he immediately took the train to Paris. The next morning, we met early, and he began drawing everything that would have to be done over the next six years. If you speak with him, he will tell you that he was helped by someone. He says, “I can’t tell you who this person is, but someone up there helped me restore this cathedral.”
Q: Is there a moment during the reconstruction that you’ll never forget?
What I will never forget is the life I shared with this family of workers. I wasn’t a worker, but I was with them all the time. Every evening, we would meet in a café near Notre-Dame and celebrate together. That sense of family is what I will never forget.
Photo taken during the restoration (Copyright: André Finot)
Q: The cathedral has survived fire, revolution, war, and now this terrible fire. Does its survival, in your opinion, tell us something about the resilience of the faith and about the French people?
Yes. I’m French, and I travel a lot. I sometimes get frustrated with French people, but I’m always happy to be with them. I love my French friends and my country. After the French Revolution, religious practice declined dramatically. Then, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, people returned to Mass. Today, a very small percentage of French people attend regularly. But I believe the Church will come back into French society. Maybe it will take twenty or thirty years, but I believe it will happen.
Q: What do you hope Pope Leo experiences when he’s in Notre-Dame? What sort of spiritual emotion, just from your point of view, do you have a certain hope?
My hope is very simple: that he will recognize the workers. They often aren’t invited to these occasions, but they gave six years of their lives to Notre Dame. I would simply like to thank them. And I can tell you that they would be more than happy to hear that.
The Cathedral of Notre Dame (@VaticanNews)
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