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Loyola HS students react after fire rages through Notre Dame Cathedral

Posted at 5:49 PM, Apr 15, 2019
and last updated 2019-04-15 20:16:34-04

MISSOULA – Twenty Loyola Sacred Heart High School students and their chaperones were in Paris just two weeks ago during Spring Break and spent time at the Notre Dame Cathedral.

Their phones are filled with photos of the famed sanctuary they say was beautiful and inspiring.

As students and as Catholics, they realize how lucky they were to see the Cathedral before a fire ripped through the 13th Century church on Monday. And as they watched the church burn, they felt the loss of all that history and architecture.

“In a word, tragic. It’s heartbreaking to see that,” said Loyola Junior Wyatt Winters. “I mean you can watch the  video of the spire coming down and it just, it just hurts you right there (gestures to his heart) because it is such a big Catholic symbol. I’d like to think that I was there at the time, I was there for a reason, that I got to see the original Notre Dame church before it did get destroyed.”

“I was really confused,” said Clara Stergios, also a junior. “I was like, something like this could not happen because it’s Holy week. And it’s a very important piece of art, it’s not just a cathedral. It’s art and architecture and it’s a historical building that lots of people care about.”

Clara says she believes the people of the world of all faiths will come together and rebuild the cathedral.