60 Minutes - 01/05/2025: Pope Francis, Notre Dame, Built By Angels

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

This past May, Norah O'Donnell met Pope Francis for a rare and historic interview at his home, the Santa Marta guest house in Vatican City, a week before the Catholic Church hosted its inaugural World Children's Day. The 88-year-old, Argentinian-born pope, the first named Francis and first from the Americas, is known for his dedication to the poor and marginalized, and for being the most unconventional head of the Church in recent memory. He spoke candidly with O’Donnell about the wars in Israel and Gaza, Ukraine, and the migration crises around the world and on the U.S. southern border. Their wide-ranging conversation also touched upon the Church's handling of its own sexual abuse scandals; Francis' deep commitment to inclusiveness within the Church; the backlash against his papacy from certain corners of U.S. Catholicism; and an exploration of his thinking on surrogate parenthood. Last month, the arched doors of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris opened to the public for the first time since April 2019, when a devastating fire nearly destroyed the great Gothic church. Correspondent Bill Whitaker had a first look inside a modern miracle of repair and restoration by workers and artisans who made possible French President Emmanuel Macron’s impossible-sounding pledge to complete the rebirth in five years. As Macron told Whitaker, “The decision to rebuild Notre Dame was…about our capacity to save, restore, sometimes reinvent what we are by preserving where we come from.” Correspondent Scott Pelley travels to Ethiopia to witness the Christmas vigil at Lalibela, a mysterious holy place, where churches are situated on a 42-acre site and are said to be built by angels. Pelley witnesses 200,000 Ethiopian Orthodox Christians who pilgrimage on Christmas Eve to celebrate its origins and speaks with Fasil Giorghis, an Ethiopian architect and historian, who tells Pelley, “coming here as a devout Christian is a very strong sign of their belief…some people travel hundreds of kilometers here on foot, and they have been doing it for several centuries." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Tonight, on this special edition of 60 Minutes Presents, a holy night. What's it like to have a long conversation with the Pope? You're about to find out. When you look at the world, what gives you hope? Everything. You see tragedies, but you also see so many beautiful things. A wide-ranging interview with Pope Francis on 60 Minutes. Tonight, 60 Minutes brings you on a tour of the restoration of Notre Dame.

Since more than eight centuries, this cathedral was here. It resisted to two world wars, so many battles and campaigns. The decision to rebuild Notre Dame, it was about our capacity to save, restore, sometimes reinvent what we are by preserving where we come from. This is a message of achievement. It's not easy to get to. But for centuries, pilgrims have made their way to a place where faith, mystery, and miracles coexist. The story of these 11 Ethiopian churches, each carved from a single block of stone, with no brick, no mortar, nor wood, is a creation story you'll need to see to believe. The new BMO VI Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more.

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Minutes Presents A Holy Night. In this season of reflection and celebration, we'll journey to Paris to marvel at the newly restored Notre Dame Cathedral, resurrected after a devastating fire. Then we'll travel to Ethiopia to see churches so unique and mysterious that the faithful believe they were built by angels. But we begin with a rare interview with Pope Francis at the Vatican in Rome. Francis is the first pope from the Americas, the first of his name, and more than any other pope in recent memory

has dedicated his life and ministry to the poor, the peripheral, and the forgotten, all while leading the Catholic Church on difficult, sometimes controversial issues in a way that not everyone supports. This past spring, Nora O'Donnell was granted a historic interview and spoke to him in his native Spanish through a translator for more than an hour. Not lost in translation was the 88-year-old's warmth, intelligence, and conviction.

The interview began with a discussion of the church's first World Children's Day, when in late May, Pope Francis welcomed tens of thousands of young people to the Vatican, including refugees of war. During World Children's Day, the U.N. says over a million people will be facing famine in Gaza, many of them children. Not just in Gaza, many of them children. JOSE FRIEDMAN, Not just in Gaza. Think of Ukraine. Many kids from Ukraine come here. You know something?

That those children don't know how to smile. I'll say something to them. They have forgotten how to smile, and that is very painful. Do you have a message for Vladimir Putin when it comes to Ukraine? Please, warring countries, all of them, stop. Stop the war. You must find a way of negotiating for peace. Strive for peace.

A negotiated peace is always better than an endless war. What's happening in Israel and Gaza has caused so much division, so much pain around the world. I don't know if you've seen in the United States big protests on college campuses and growing anti-Semitism. What would you say about how to change that? All ideology is bad.

And anti-Semitism is an ideology, and it is bad. Any anti is always bad. You can criticize one government or another, the government of Israel, the Palestinian government. You can criticize all you want, but not anti-a people, neither anti-Palestinian nor anti-Semitic. No. AMY GOODMAN I know you call for peace. You have called for a ceasefire in many of your sermons.

Can you help negotiate peace? What I can do is pray. I pray a lot for peace. And also to suggest, please stop, negotiate. Prayer has been at the center of the Pope's life since he was born, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, in Argentina in 1936 into a family of Italian immigrants. Before entering the seminary, Bergoglio worked as a chemist. His own personal formula is simplicity. He still wears the plain silver cross he wore as the Archbishop of Buenos Aires. Though it's not what Francis wears, but where he lives that set the tone for his papacy 11 years ago.

Instead of a palace above St. Peter's Square, he chose the Vatican guest house, Casa Santa Marta, as his home. We met him there under a painting of the Virgin Mary. Surrounded by the sacred, Francis has not forsaken his sense of humor, even when discussing serious subjects like the migrant crisis. My grandparents were Catholic, immigrated from Northern Ireland in the 1930s to the United States seeking a better life. And I know your family too fled fascism and you have talked about with migrants, many of them children, that you encourage governments to build bridges not walls. Migration is something that makes a country grow. They say that you Irish migrated and brought the whiskey,

or that the Italians migrated and brought the mafia. It's a joke. Don't take it badly. But migrants sometimes suffer a lot. They suffer a lot. I grew up in Texas, and I don't know if you've heard, but the state of Texas is attempting to shut down a Catholic charity on the border with Mexico that offers undocumented migrants humanitarian assistance. What do you think of that?

That is madness. Sheer madness. To close the border and leave them there, that is madness. The migrant has to be received. Thereafter you see how you're going to deal with them. Maybe you have to send them back. I don't know. But each case ought to be considered humanely, right?

A few months after becoming Pope, Francis went to a small Italian island near Africa to meet migrants fleeing poverty and war. Your first trip as Pope was to the island of Lampedusa, where you talked about suffering. And I was so struck when you talked about the globalization of indifference. What is happening? Do you want me to state it plainly? People wash their hands. There are so many Pontius Pilate's on the loose out there.

You see what is happening, the wars, the injustice, the crimes. That's okay, that's okay, and wash their hands. It's indifference. That is what happens when the heart hardens and becomes indifferent. Please, we have to get our hearts to feel again. We cannot remain indifferent in the face of such human dramas. The globalization of indifference is a very ugly disease. Very ugly.

Pope Francis has not been indifferent to the church's most insidious scandal, the rampant sexual abuse of hundreds of thousands of children worldwide for decades. You have done more than anyone to try and reform the Catholic Church and repent for years of unspeakable sexual abuse against children by members of the clergy. But has the church done enough? It must continue to do more. Unfortunately, the tragedy of the abuses is enormous. And against this, an upright conscience,

and not only to not permit it, but to put in place the conditions so that it does not happen. You have said zero tolerance. It cannot be tolerated. When there is a case of a religious man or woman who abuses, the full force of the law falls upon them. In this, there has been a great deal of progress. A few weeks after we interviewed the Pope, it was reported that he used a homophobic slur in two private meetings. It was a very public controversy. Still, it's Francis's capacity for forgiveness and openness that has defined his

leadership of the church's nearly 1.4 billion Catholics. He put them and the world on notice during an impromptu press conference on a plane in 2013, when he spoke more broadly on the subject of homosexuality. If someone is gay, he said, and he searches for the Lord and has goodwill, who am I to judge? And he did not stop there. Last year, you decided to allow Catholic priests to bless same-sex couples. That's a big change. Why?

No, what I allowed was not to bless the union. That cannot be done because that is not the sacrament. I cannot. The Lord made it that way. But to bless each person, yes. The blessing is for everyone. For everyone. To bless a homosexual-type union, however, goes against the given right, against the law of the Church.

But to bless each person? Why not? The blessing is for all. Some people were scandalized by this, but why? Everyone. Everyone. AMY GOODMAN- You have said, who am I to judge? Homosexuality is not a crime. No, it's a human fact.

There are conservative bishops in the United States that oppose your new efforts to revisit teachings and traditions. How do you address their criticism? You used an adjective, conservative. That is, conservative is one who clings to something and does not want to see beyond that. It is a suicidal attitude.

Because one thing is to take tradition into account, to consider situations from the past, but quite another is to be closed up inside a dogmatic box. Pope Francis has placed more women in positions of power than any of his predecessors, but he told us he opposes allowing women to be ordained as priests or deacons. Francis's devotion to traditional doctrine led one Vatican reporter to note that he's changed the tune of the church, but the lyrics essentially remain the same. This frustrates those who want to see him change policy on Roman Catholic priests marrying, contraception, and surrogate motherhood.

I know women who are cancer survivors who cannot bear children, and they turn to surrogacy. This is against church doctrine. In regard to surrogate motherhood, in the strictest sense of the term, no, it is not authorized. Sometimes surrogacy has become a business, and that is very bad. It is very bad.

But sometimes for some women, it is the only hope. It could be. The other hope is adoption. I would say that in each case, the situation should be carefully and clearly considered, consulting medically and then morally as well. I think there is a general rule in these cases, but you have to go into each case in particular to assess the situation, as long as the moral principle is not skirted.

But you were right. I want to tell you that I really liked your expression when you told me, in some cases, it is the only chance. It shows that you feel these things very deeply. Gracias. I think that's why so many people have found hope with you,

because you have been more open and accepting, perhaps, than other previous leaders of the church. You have to be open to everything. The church is like that. Everyone, everyone, everyone. That so-and-so is a sinner. Me too, I am a sinner.

Everyone. The gospel is for everyone. If the church places a customs officer at the door, that is no longer the church of Christ. Everyone. When you look at the world, what gives you hope? Everything. You see tragedies, but you also see so many beautiful things.

You see heroic mothers, heroic men, men who have hopes and dreams, women who look to the future. That gives me a lot of hope. People want to live, people forge ahead, and people are fundamentally good. We are all fundamentally good. Sometimes we are a little mischievous, sinners. But the heart is good. Sometimes historic events suck. But what shouldn't suck is learning about history.

I do that through storytelling. History That Doesn't Suck is a chart-topping history-telling podcast chronicling the epic story of America, decade by decade. Right now, I'm digging into the history of incredible infrastructure projects of the 1930s, including the Hoover Dam, the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, and more. The promise is in the title, History That Doesn't Suck. Available on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Three weeks ago today, the first worship service in more than five years was held in the Cathedral

of Notre Dame in Paris. Thousands of people crowded into the Catholic Cathedral to attend Mass, receive communion, and celebrate the rebirth of this centuries-old Gothic masterpiece. When a devastating fire tore through Notre Dame in 2019, people around the world feared that the cathedral might collapse. Only a heroic effort by firefighters prevented that, and as we saw just a few weeks before the reopening, a monumental effort to repair and restore Notre Dame has now produced something of a modern miracle. Many people deserve credit for the resurrection of Notre Dame,

but none more than French President Emmanuel Macron. You made a promise the day after Notre Dame burned in 2019, and you said, quote, we will rebuild Notre Dame more beautiful than before, and I want it done in the next five years. Did you have any doubts when you said that, that that might be possible? If you have a doubt, it's already over. Someone we spoke to called it a moonshot moment.

These five years was a sort of new frontier. Yeah. This is perfectly true. When I. This five years was a sort of new frontier. Yeah. This is perfectly true. When I announced the five years, all the experts, a lot of people just made comments to say he's crazy. So what gave you the confidence while Notre Dame was still smoking it? I saw these guys, these firemen. I mean, just going beyond their own capacities

with such energy and commitment. And I think this is exactly, this is sort of a metaphor of what our societies, and especially our democracies, need. Make possible the unthinkable. We are all very proud of what we have done together. Last year, President Macron appointed Philippe Joost to lead the team restoring Notre Dame. We met him just inside what was still an active construction zone.

What words come to mind when you first walk in? The light. The light is very breathtaking. And the space. In this monument, there is a soul. A soul. A soul. And we feel that when we enter now, we feel that.

To walk into Notre Dame today is to see no sign of 2019. Then, the cathedral's nave was littered with burnt wood and stone rubble, a gaping hole in the ceiling where the flaming spire crashed through. Even when we visited in 2023, a dense forest of scaffolding remained. Now, it is open and airy. Every stone shines. Every stained glass window is polished. Every masterpiece glows.

All topped by a new spire and a new roof replacing the utter destruction of five years ago. We had the big vault there to rebuild. So there was a gaping hole. A big hole there. When President Macron said five years, we knew that this point here was the most challenging space of the restoration.

If Philippe Jost is now commander-in-chief of the restoration, Philippe Villeneuve remains its artistic director. Chief architect of the cathedral since well before the fire, we saw him in 2023 supervising every detail and every artisan. You also told us that rebuilding Notre Dame was in a way rebuilding yourself after the fire.

Do you feel rebuilt now? Oui. Yes, Villeneuve told us. Today I can watch images of the fire, see the spire falling into the flames. That's something I couldn't watch before. Last year, Villeneuve supervised the construction of a new wooden spire and its lead covering, and designed a new rooster, a symbol of the French people, for its very peak. It was put in place last December. When I saw the spire and the lead roof appear,

Villeneuve said, when we put the rooster and the cross in place, I felt that a wound had been closed. Since more than eight centuries, this cathedral was here. It resisted to two world wars, so many battles and campaigns. The decision to rebuild Notre Dame,

it was about our capacity to save, restore, sometimes reinvent what we are by preserving where we come from. This is a message of achievement. Many of the achievements, like the new spire and roof, are massive. Notre-Dame's huge bells were removed after the fire for cleaning and repair, then returned and tested a few weeks ago. Its organ, with 8,000 pipes, the largest in France, was also removed, repaired, and reinstalled.

The day we were there, an organist filled the cathedral with thunderous, soaring sound. Somehow small achievements feel just as noteworthy. Outside, workmen dangling on ropes to hammer wood into place and carefully cementing paving stones. Inside, delicately applying wax to ancient wood, ensuring that every light bulb is lit and every floor polished. Our job is mostly to bring back all the value of mural painting. Painting restorer Diana Castillo

has been working in the many small chapels of Notre Dame, where centuries ago murals were painted onto stone walls and ceilings. We had a lot of work to clean them. Diana shared photos and video of what the chapels and paintings looked like when she and other restorers began their work after the fire, cloudy and dim, and their appearance now after cleaning. So we did one chapel after another, after another,

and after we finished the cleaning process, it was really almost one year. We were like, OK, now we can see the paint, now we can appreciate it and start the restoration. So you were not just removing the soot from the fire, but you were removing the grime from centuries. Exactly, exactly, exactly, from 1850, actually. Many of them had never been touched since 1850, so you imagine 170 years. Today, the murals are gleaming.

Ceilings show starry nights of deep blue and gold. And stone columns that had been gray are now kaleidoscopes of color. And you have brought those colors back to life. Absolutely, yes. and I'm sure many people will be shocked. And the results like this are very satisfying for us, of course. Similar transformations are everywhere in the new Notre Dame. Stone walls and ceilings that had been dark and gloomy seem to shine, and so do the many marble statues and decorative metal works. The workers and craftspeople who have pulled all this off are known as companions, and their work is celebrated on huge banners overlooking the River Seine.

We've heard of something called the Notre Dame effect, which is young people being drawn to traditional crafts and trades because of the work they're doing and seeing being done here at the cathedral. Have you witnessed that? It's true, Philippe Villeneuve told us, that Notre-Dame was a formidable school for all the different crafts, carpenters, metalworkers, stone carvers, painters. All these kinds of jobs were boosted by the restoration.

I visited the site a few times, and each time what struck me the most was the commitment and the joy and the responsibility of the companions that I met. Anne Diaz-Griffin was born in France and educated in the U.S., where she runs an investment firm. She has helped mobilize financial support in America to revitalize Notre Dame. Why do you think this symbol of Paris and of France inspires such strong feelings, not just here, but in the U.S. and around the world.

Notre Dame symbolizes something universal, and that's something to be cherished. Anne's contribution to the restoration effort was one of the largest from anyone in the U.S. The support from Americans was just tremendous. There were over 45,000 donors who contributed funds to the cathedral for a sum of over $57 million. So we should be incredibly proud of that. Every penny of that has been needed. The total cost of restoring Notre Dame is nearing a billion dollars,

including, Philippe Jost told us, for measures to prevent another tragedy. So you have new fire detection, new fire suppression systems that have all been installed? Installed in the roof. So that would prevent another catastrophe like this from ever happening again? We are very confident in that. It will not happen again.

Joost also expressed confidence that rebuilding the new Notre Dame using the old materials of wood and stone and we will restore it for 860 years. That it will last another 860 years. Another 860 years, and perhaps more. Architect Philippe Villeneuve championed the use of traditional materials, especially to build the towering new spire just as the old one had been constructed. But he let us in on a secret. There is one new touch up there. I left a small mark of myself, he told us. In one of the hooks of the new spire is my face,

with an admiring and affectionate look to represent all the companions who rebuilt the cathedral. President Macron visited Notre Dame while we were there, when it was still buzzing with preparations for opening day. It's impressive and very moving to see that we still have dozens of people working hard to finish the job. And as Notre Dame's great doors reopen,

might that spirit be even a little bit contagious? There's a lot of political division here in France as there is in the United States. So in this climate, how important is it to have a project like this that unifies rather than divides? We speak about moment of unity and pride. And this is exactly what our nations need, especially in that times. We should try to consider this type of moment

and great projects and think, if we're already unable to do so, why don't we try to fix other, perhaps more abstract, but very important big issues of our countries? So the impossible is not impossible, huh? Definitely, it's French motto. impossible is not impossible, huh? Definitely. It's French motto. Impossible is not French. If faith is a mystery, there are few places in the Christian world where the mystery is

deeper than in Lalibela. Faith is a mystery. There are few places in the Christian world where the mystery is deeper than in Lalibela. Eight hundred years ago, an Ethiopian king ordered a new capital for Christians. At 8,000 feet on the central plateau of Ethiopia stand 11 churches, each carved from a single gigantic block of stone. No bricks, no mortar, no concrete, no lumber, just rock sculpted into architecture. As Scott Pelley first reported in 2019, not much is known about who built them or why. But the faithful of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church say there's no mystery, really. The churches of Lalibela were built by angels. The northern highlands of Ethiopia rose 31 million years ago when fissures in the earth flooded the Horn of Africa with lava a mile deep. On hillsides, you can still see columns of lava frozen in time. Iron made the basalt red, and gases trapped inside made

the stone light, as light and pliable as air. Christians laid their mark on Ethiopia before the year 400. They found the ancient stone welcomed the bite of a chisel. The churches were carved around the year 1200 by people called the Zagwe. Their king, Lalabela, is said to have traveled the 1600 miles to Jerusalem. Legend has it, when he returned and Jerusalem fell to the Islamic conquest, Lalabela ordered a new home for Christianity. And he came back with an ambitious idea or vision of creating an African Jerusalem, a black Jerusalem, here in the highlands of Ethiopia. Faisal Gheorghez is an Ethiopian architect and historian who walked us through the Rock of Ages.

Well, there are three groups of churches, and each group is interconnected within itself. We're sitting in St. Mary's Church. Yes. How was it built? Well, it was built starting from outside. They formed the shape, and then they start digging, or let's say excavating downwards.

So they dug essentially a trench around the whole perimeter. Yes. Which left them with a giant cube of solid rock. Exactly. And then they carved their doors and in they went? In they went. Chipping inside largely in darkness, artists sculpted many rooms with no room for error. Archways, vaults, and columns imitate traditional construction,

even though in solid rock there's no need to hold up the ceiling. The enduring mystery is why. Why did King Lalabella attempt the seemingly impossible when easier building techniques were known. As the story goes, he was helped by angels who worked on the project overnight. I think I would rather take this as a symbolic thing because... Do you not have any experience working with angels in architecture? Well, I get inspiration from angels. The site of the 11 churches covers about 62 acres.

It's divided by a stream King Lalabella christened the River Jordan. The largest church covers around 8,000 square feet. Each is about four stories tall. But their most astounding dimension cannot be measured. It is the length to which they summon adoration. This is considered to be a holy place. That coming here as a devout Christian is a very strong sign of their belief. Some people travel hundreds of kilometers to get here on foot, on foot,

and they have been doing it for several centuries. The churches are open for worship year-round, but we were there Christmas Eve when nearly 200,000 pilgrims rose to heaven on a path descending into the earth. Many walked for days or weeks, fasting, robed in white, an ordeal that is rinsed from the disciples in the tradition of Jesus. Any Ethiopian over the age of 30 cannot forget the suffering of drought and war and a million people lost to starvation. And so, having known poverty in this life, they've invested their souls in the next. Tewolda Yigzau told us, I believe God is here. I came with faith.

Her neighbor, Gaitie Ababao, and his daughter told us they walked from their farms nearly a hundred miles away, a journey of three days. God can hear your prayers anywhere. Why did you feel you had to be here? So that God can see our devotion, she said, and our dedication. We were very tired, he said. We were falling and getting back up throughout the journey, all to see the celebration here. And God will recognize our effort. The Christmas celebration Ethiopians call Genna compresses them shoulder to shoulder to fast and chant and praise all night till dawn brings Christmas Day.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church claims to be among the earliest capitals of Christianity, thanks to a mysterious figure of the Hebrew Bible. The faithful believe that the Queen of Sheba left Ethiopia, went to Jerusalem, where she met King Solomon. From that meeting came a son, and when the son was an adult, he returned to Ethiopia with 12,000 Israelites and the Ark of the Covenant, containing the tablets with the Word of God, the Ten Commandments. And the Ark remains in Ethiopia, according to the priests of the Orthodox Church. We met Tage Saleh Mazgabu, the head priest of Lalabela, at the Church of St. George,

which was last to be built and judged to be the masterpiece. I met a woman on Christmas Day who had spent three days walking here. Who are these pilgrims? These are believers, he told us. Not just three days, even three months sometimes. When there was no air travel or buses, people used to travel from various parts of the country for months to come here and celebrate with us.

The celebration beats to the rhythm of ancient instruments, the kibero, double-headed drum, and a rattle called the sistrum, whose sound was known in North Africa 3,000 years before Jesus. On Christmas Eve, we watched you and your priests lead the chant all night long. What are you saying in that chant? We tell the people that God became human and a human became God. Because of Christ, we went from being punished by God to being his children again. Christmas is the day that forgiveness was born.

But while God forgives, time does not. After eight centuries, the basalt basilicas are weary of wind and water. What's absolutely clear is that something quite miraculous happened here. Stephen Battle is an architect with the World Monuments Fund, who told us Lalabella's miracle is being undermined because the rock is not rock solid. When you're building a conventional building, you go to a quarry and you'll have different grades of stone and you try and select the best stone and leave the bad stuff behind. When you're carving a church out of the mountainside, you don't have that luxury. And so typically in any one of the churches here, you get good stone and a lot

of it is good stone, but then you also get actually bad stone and actually very bad stone, which is really very soft indeed, and over time, if you touch it, it actually crumbles. And this is one of the most sacred parts of Lalibela. We saw the good and the bad in the chamber where King Lalibela is laid to rest. This is one of the best preserved sculptures I've seen at Lalabella. Yes, this is particularly beautiful, and they're also painted. Simon Warwick is a master stonemason, also with the World Monuments Fund, a U.S.-based charity that preserves some of humankind's great achievements. Obviously, we worked on the roof first. Warwick has repaired European cathedrals and Roman antiquities,

but Lalabella is more complicated because of the sincere belief that angels worked this stone. Simon, you can't actually cut this stone in order to fit a new piece in because the stone you would be cutting is sacred. Yeah, this was one of the first big issues that I came across. If we ever had to drill a hole to strengthen it or put in a pin,

we had to discuss it with the priests. They collected the dust. There was a whole procedure around touching the fabric of the church. The priests collected the dust? Yes. Yes. That was the issue when Warwick was asked to resurrect the cross in this window without disturbing the fragment that remained. So this cross wasn't here?

It was completely gone, yes. It was a very, very thin piece of stone remaining. And so I hollowed out the back of the cross shape that we were inserting so that it was fitting over the original stone a bit like a dentist. And so we were able to conserve this tiny bit of stone, which is, in stonemasonry terms, it's crazy. But you have to do that in this kind of situation. There have been other crazy conservation ideas.

A dozen years ago, five umbrellas were built to keep the heavens from pouring down. The local people call them gas station roofs, and I think it's a pretty apt way of describing them. So you can imagine, we have this extraordinary site with some of the most beautiful buildings in the world, with extraordinary, huge spiritual significance, and there's a bunch of gas station roofs that have been placed over the top of them. It's really not compatible. It's not appropriate. Unholy to behold, the roofs became a lesson in the law of unintended consequences. The churches were too wet. Now they're too dry.

For the first time in 900 years, they're not being rained on. Exactly right. And so the stone is contracting much more than it has ever done before. And what happens is this creates little failures on a micro level and the stone starts to crumble. The roofs were meant to be temporary and in a few years they must be recovered. Stephen Battle prays they'll be removed altogether and replaced by intensive maintenance. To that end, the World Monuments Fund is teaching conservation to dozens of Lalabella's priests and laymen in the hope that a host can protect the heavenly, perhaps for centuries to come. How long can they last? Well, another 900 years if they're looked after properly.

Oh yes, we're beyond a shadow of a doubt, absolutely, if they're looked after properly. Oh yes, we're beyond a shadow of a doubt, absolutely, if they're looked after correctly. Even beyond another millennia, we're not likely to know with certainty the answer to why. Why attempt what must have seemed impossible? No answer was apparent until we chipped away at what we saw Christmas Day. In the Old Testament, Isaiah advises those who seek God to look to the rock from which you were cut and the quarry from which you were hewn. Whoever cut this rock, angels or man, understood that in the presence of a miracle, faith is never washed away. I'm Bill Whitaker. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.