Paris, France, Apr 15, 2019 / 11:33 am (CNA).- The Cathedrale Notre-Dame is on fire, according to the Paris fire department. Multiple eyewitnesses shared photos and videos of the cathedral with visible plumes of smoke and flames across the cathedral’s roof.
Firefighters responded to an alarm rasied shortly before 7pm, according to the newspaper Le Monde.
Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo issued a series of brief statements via Twitter saying that emergency responders are fighting to control the flames and appealing to local residents to keep the area clear to assist their efforts.
Officials have not yet determined what caused the fire, which is still burning.
The landmark cathedral in the French capital is one of the most recognizable churches in the world. The fire comes after several weeks of vandalism and arson attacks on church buildings across France.
This is a developing story and is being updated.
Roommate just sent this of Notre Dame on fire in Paris woowwww pic.twitter.com/NEMs33AHYD
— Process Guy (@leistomania93) April 15, 2019
One Twitter user shared a video taken by his roommate, Michael Norwich of Denver, CO, that shows the top of the cathedral engulfed in flame.
Smoke billowing from Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France. pic.twitter.com/mvx4jN19fH
— David Almacy (@almacy) April 15, 2019
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Smoke billowing from Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France. pic.twitter.com/mvx4jN19fH
— David Almacy (@almacy) April 15, 2019
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The Cathedral was a monument to Our Lady by a civilization that believed in, trusted her, and paid her homage. This fire is surely a sign to the civilization which does her little honor and indeed pays her little homage and even less belief. In this Holy Week, let us faithful ones beg her protection.
It’s incredibly painful to watch the cathedral burning. But however beautiful it was, it was only rock, wood, glass and metal, and whatever those before us made we can make again if we try.
But maybe a good time to remember the rain falls on us all, good and wicked and in between. Let’s not suggest we can escape hardship through thoughts and deeds.
I am grateful that nobody, it seems, has been killed, but I am heartbroken by the destruction. Would it be wrong to pray that God would miraculously restore it?
When I was 6 years old, I prayed that God would miraculously restore my dog to life. We need to learn that this is not how God normally works. And frankly (an apt word), our prayers are better spent asking for a restoration of the Faith that built the building rather than for the building itself.
We don’t know how God works.
A restoration of the Cathedral may be instrumental in bringing a few lost souls back to Faith.
I am aware that that is not how God normally works. Miracles, especially of that sort, are not common. But as Ramjet says below, a miraculous restoration might aid in the restoration of lost faith. So many people were praying publicly last night – perhaps some of whom normallly don’t.
Please, does anyone know if they saved the Eucharist?
Yes, they did. “Etienne Loraillère, an editor at France’s KTO Catholic Television, reported that “Fr. Fournier, chaplain of the Paris Firefighters, went with the firefighters into Notre-Dame cathedral to save the crown of thorns and the Blessed Sacrament.”