The sacred and the profane.

15 Aug, 2005

Notre-Dame de Paris plays host to some 11 million visitors every year but very few of them enter the church to attend Mass. The chaplain Monsignor Paul Guiberteau has recently felt the need to remind the faithful that Notre-Dame de Paris is not a museum but a place of worship. All too often he has had to ask for quiet during Mass.

Tourists feel free to interrupt Mass and continue photographing and chatting while the priest is presiding over the service, much to the annoyance of the genuine faithful.

Entrance to Notre-Dame is free but there is a real problem of how to reconcile the benefits of tourism with the needs of the faithful.

Notre-Dame de Paris is the most visited monument in France, followed by the Basilique du Sacre Coeur in Montmartre which has 8 million visitors every year and the Eiffel Tower which has just under 6 million.