Notre Dame de Paris is preparing to reopen its doors for the first time since 2019, when a fire tore through the church and initiated a five-year cleanup and restoration effort. Now the monumental church of France has returned to form, but it has been proposed that Notre Dame should charge an entry fee. While the money could help preserve more churches in the country, Notre Dame's Catholic authorities are firmly against such measures.
In an interview with Le Figaro, French Culture Minister Rachida Dati suggested a $5 fee to visit Notre Dame de Paris. Assuming 15 million visitors in 2025, this could raise around $75 million to preserve and renovate France’s other churches, of which it is estimated that between 3,000 and 5,000 are in serious disrepair.
But Catholic leaders in France were quick to decry the notion of charging an entry fee to Notre Dame and listed a number of reasons for its opposition. First and foremost, the free admission to Catholic churches in France is protected under a 1905 law that outlined the boundaries that separate Church and State. While the ownership of French church buildings went to the State, the Church has supreme authority over their function.
In Notre Dame’s response, the Church’s leaders also noted that to charge admittance to a functioning church breaches the fundamental mission of churches: “to welcome unconditionally and therefore necessarily free of charge every man and woman, regardless of their religion or belief, their opinions and their financial means.”
The letter went on to discuss how the Church does not distinguish between pilgrims and visitors, as to do so would require the establishment of different access conditions for one and the other. This, in turn, would separate them from the essence of “Communion between all” and detract from the experience of both:
“This separation would also be extremely complex to put in place on a practical level: given the relative smallness of the place, it would be difficult to distinguish visitors, pilgrims, and the faithful,” Notre Dame’s Catholic leadership wrote.
In their final argument against charging visitors, they noted that the restoration work was “fully financed” by donations from the faithful and visitors all over the world who love Notre Dame. They suggested that charging a fee would be a poor way to honor such a demonstration of “their unwavering attachment to Notre-Dame,” and would require yet another distinction.
“The preservation of religious heritage in France is a subject dear to the hearts of many, believers or not, and deserves concerted reflection, the solution of which cannot be unique. Other avenues can be explored than that of taxing visitors to Notre Dame, for a price that is not anecdotal and would inevitably lead people to give up visiting a cathedral that is by nature open to all.”
It is unclear if Minister Dati will pursue legislation or policy changes to initiate such measures, or if it was a fleeting thought in an interview, but it seems clear that the Church will oppose any movement in that direction.
