Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Notre Dame
Father Edward Sorin, a French priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross, founded the University of Notre Dame in the forests of northern Indiana in 1842. The church he built at its centre was begun in 1870 and consecrated in 1888. Its spire, rising beside the famous Golden Dome, is one of the best-known sights on any American campus.
Inside, the church is painted in rich colours by the Vatican artist Luigi Gregori, who spent seventeen years at Notre Dame. It holds one of the largest collections of nineteenth-century French stained glass in the world, made by the Carmelite nuns of Le Mans: more than forty large windows showing scenes from Scripture and the lives of the saints. The Lady Chapel behind the altar holds a Baroque altar from Rome, and the reliquary chapel keeps relics of many saints.
Pope Saint John Paul II made it a minor basilica in 1992. It is the mother church of the Congregation of Holy Cross in the United States and the university’s parish, where students, alumni and visitors fill Mass on football weekends. Nearby is a replica of the Lourdes grotto.
- Built
- 1870–1888
- Style
- Gothic Revival
- Where
- Notre Dame, Indiana, United States
- Map
- Find it on OpenStreetMap