St. Louis Cathedral United States

Legendary

One of the oldest churches in the US, it is dedicated to King Louis IX of France.

Photo by Bernard Spragg. NZ

On Good Friday, March 21, 1788, a fire broke out in New Orleans. Panicked residents ran to the church and begged the priest, Père Antoine, to ring the bells as an alarm.

The fire swept through the city and burned the church to the ground. It was the holiest day of the Christian year, which made the loss feel even worse.

A church had stood on this spot since 1718, the year New Orleans was founded. It was named for Saint Louis, better known as King Louis IX of France, a medieval king famous for his devotion to the Catholic faith.

After the fire, rebuilding started fast. Workers laid the cornerstone in 1789, and the new church was dedicated on Christmas Eve, 1794.

By then it had a new title. In 1793, the church became a cathedral, the home church of the first Catholic bishop of New Orleans.

In 1819, a central tower with a clock and bell was added. The bell was named "Victoire" to celebrate the American victory at the Battle of New Orleans four years earlier.

By the 1840s the cathedral was too small. Builders set out to enlarge it in 1850, but the plan went wrong when the central tower collapsed, bringing down parts of the roof and walls.

Almost everything had to be rebuilt. The cathedral that stands today, with its three tall steeples, dates from that reconstruction, and only the foundation and part of the front wall survive from the 1790s.

The 1819 bell survived too. It still rings from the central spire on the hour and quarter hours.

More than 100 people are buried beneath the floor and pews, including early bishops and civic leaders. Pope John Paul II visited in 1987, and Hurricane Katrina damaged the roof and pipe organ in 2005.

Today it's the oldest cathedral in continuous use in the United States, sharing that title with a chapel in Monterey, California.

Walk through the front doors from Jackson Square and look up at the painted ceiling and the stained glass telling the story of Saint Louis. Step around back to St. Anthony's Garden, where a statue of Jesus casts a giant shadow on the cathedral wall at night. Then stand in the square and listen for the bell that's been ringing since 1819.