Notre-Dame of France and Cardinal Verdier's Wish (I)

The story of Notre-Dame of France began in Jerusalem when the French Assumptionist Fathers built a very large edifice overlooking the city, completed and crowned with the great statue of Our Lady (Notre-Dame of France) in 1904. The buildings were heavily damaged during the conflict between Israeli and Arab forces. In 1970 the Assumptionists sold the entire property, but the transaction was contested by the Holy See, the owner of all ecclesiastical goods. So, starting in 1973, the center took on the name "Notre-Dame of Jerusalem," and in 2004 Pope John Paul II entrusted the center to the Legionaries of Christ with a Motu Proprio. Concerning the statue of Our Lady set at the top of the building in Jerusalem, a sculptor, Roger de Villers, used the statue of the Virgin as a model for a second seven and a half yard-high statue of Notre-Dame of France, to crown the Pontifical Pavilion at the 1937 Universal Exposition in Paris, which became the "Marian Pavilion" the following year in order to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the consecration of France to the Blessed Virgin Mary by King Louis XIII.