Consecration Of Rheims Cathedral

On Monday, October 18, Cardinal Suhard, Archbishop of Rheims, in the presence of Mgr. Valeri, the Papal Nuncio, and other prelates solemnly consecrated Rheims Cathedral.
The ceremony began at 6.30 a.m. with the purification of the exterior. After the Cardinal at the head of the procession had made three circuits of the Cathedral, he proceeded to the purification of the interior and the consecration of the altars, The Archbishop of Troyes officiated at High Mass. He it was who had celebrated the last Mass in the Cathedral before it was bombed in the Great War.
The Cathedral, which was twisted and broken, has been wonderfully restored to its former glory.
The actual opening will not be till July 3, 1938, when all the dignatories of the Church in France, and representatives of the civil powers and of the Rockefeller family whose generosity has hastened remarkably the work of restoration, will be assembled. But Cardinal Suhard has eagerly taken advantage of his right, and amidst the joy of his people taken possession of his Cathedral by the magnificent ceremonies of the consecration.
' Some of the English newspapers refer to the ceremony as a tteconsecration. This, however, is incorrec for, in spite of its long history, Rheims Cathedral has never previously been consecrated. After the total destruction by fire of an earlier building, the first stone of the present cathedral was laid in 1211 by the Archbishop, Aubri de Humbert. The high altar had been saved from the fire and was used in the new edifice. This high altar had, of course, already been consecrated; and in the Middle Ages it was considered sufficient for the sanctification of a ehurch if the high altar -only were consecrated. So the walls of the new cathedral, the walls which were to witness the annointing of the kings of France, and were to be cast down by fantastic engines of war, were never consecrated.
(See page 8.)