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The Basilica of the Sacred Heart
One building in this record earns a file of its own. The Basilica of the Sacred Heart stands on the University of Notre Dame's campus in the unincorporated place called Notre Dame, adjoining South Bend's northeast — stated once, plainly, as the sibling sections state it. Edward Sorin built the present church between 1870 and 1892 as the mother church of the Congregation of Holy Cross in the United States and as a place of pilgrimage, filled it with French glass and an Italian painter's life work, asked Rome in 1888 to make it a basilica, and waited a century for the answer, which came on 17 January 1992. This section digs the building whole: what stood on the ground before it, how it was conceived, built, glazed, painted, voiced and restored, what the designation changed, and how it stands and works as the university publishes it in November 2026.
The churches before this one — Badin's chapel and the Old Church of 1848
1832 – 1875 · the succession on the ground
The mission line: The Basilica's own tour history begins the line long before the building: Fr. Claude Allouez established a mission on the south shore of St. Mary's Lake in 1686, Ste.-Marie-des-Lacs, serving the Potawatomi and…
Sorin's French church — the plans that were refused and the plan that was built
Spring 1869 – 1871 · the conception
The decision: In the spring of 1869 the Congregation's Provincial Council decided to build a new collegiate church dedicated to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. The account of the conception that survives at anniversary depth is…
Rising, 1870–1892 — cornerstone, first Mass, consecration, steeple
Spring 1870 – 1892 · the building course
The start: Foundations were begun in the spring of 1870. The cornerstone was laid on 31 May 1871 — the tour's word is "blessed" — with six bishops present, among them Archbishop John Purcell of Cincinnati, on the Basilica's…
The tower's voice — twenty-three bells from Le Mans and the great bourdon
1856 – present · the bells, older than the building
The 1856 bells: The Basilica's bells are older than the Basilica. The scholarly bell record — Jeffrey Bossin's study of North America's first carillon, and the TowerBells milestone list of North American tower bells — gives the…
Gregori's painted church — fifty-six murals and the Stations
1874 – 1893 · the interior as one man's work
The work, not the man: Luigi Gregori's biography — Bologna, the papal household of Pius IX, the seventeen years as Notre Dame's professor of art — stands in the Artists history in this record, and stands there whole. What belongs…
The Le Mans glass — the Carmelites, Rathouis, Hucher, and the signatures in the windows
1863 – 1888 · manufacture; conserved 1988–91
Sorin's channel: The glass came through a relationship, not a catalogue. The Carmel du Mans glassworks — the workshop of the Carmelite nuns of Le Mans — had provided windows for Notre Dame's first church in 1863, including the…
Seven chapels, a crypt, and the relics
1886 – present · the church in its parts
The chapels: Beyond its sanctuary the Basilica holds seven apsidal chapels, and the tour's floor plan names the ring of them. The Lady Chapel, added in 1886–87 and told in the building entry, was known historically as the Chapel…
The organs — Erie in 1875, Cleveland in 1978, Tacoma in 2016
1875 – 2017 · the instrument line
The first instruments of the present church: The organ line of the present church opens while the church is still unfinished: in 1875 Derrick and Felgemaker of Erie, Pennsylvania, installed an organ of 2,000 pipes in the newly…
A basilica — Sorin's ask of 1888 and the pope's answer of 1992
1888 – 17 January 1992 · the designation
The ask: The designation was Sorin's idea, and it is as old as the consecration. In 1888, the Basilica's history page records, Sorin asked that the church be made a basilica. Nothing in the record reached shows the ask renewed in…
Taken apart and put back — the restorations of 1931, 1968 and 1988–91
1931 – 1991 · three campaigns
1931: The first thorough renovation of the church came in 1931, designed by the New York architect Wilfred E. Anthony, on the Basilica's history page's account. The record reached gives the campaign its designer and its year and…
The Basilica in use — mother church, visitors, and the present state
1888 – present · verified as published, November 2026
The mother church at work: The Basilica's daily identity is constitutional before it is architectural: it is the mother church of the Congregation of Holy Cross in the United States, the place where, in the tour's words at the…