60 Minutes - 04/09/2023: The Origin of Everything, Sportswashing, The Resurrection of Notre Dame

Episode Date: April 10, 2023

Scott Pelley explores images captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the world’s most powerful space telescope. Speaking with astrophysicists and astronomers, Pelley reports on the telescope’s discoveries of distant galaxies, including one that’s over 33 billion light years away, and an observation that, if confirmed, could upend the belief on how the universe formed and more. In the days of the Roman Coliseum, they called it “Bread and Circuses”—leaders using entertainment to distract citizens from genuine problems. Today, Saudi Arabia is accused of using the same tactic with a different name: "sportswashing." Is the Kingdom diversifying its economy, as they insist, or covering up human rights abuses and political repression? Jon Wertheim traveled to Saudi Arabia to find out. Four years after the Cathedral of Notre Dame was nearly destroyed by fire, Bill Whitaker returns to Paris to witness the resurrection of the medieval structure and powerful symbol of France. 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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terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver. What does the origin of everything look like? That's what NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is trying to discover. We call it space because we thought there was nothing out there. There is no empty sky with James Webb. The telescope is sensitive to the faint

light that reaches us from the dawn of time. Then this team turns data into images that look like this, and this, and this. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has ignited a revolution in global sports, and it's not easy to apply a price tag. Soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo has just signed a $200 million contract for one year. Golfers who left the PGA make more than $100 million to play in a new Saudi-backed circuit. Is the kingdom simply resetting the market in sports?

Or using sports to launder its image? Almost exactly four years ago, the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris caught fire and the world watched in horror. On this Easter Sunday, 60 Minutes gets rare access to the painstaking restoration of Notre Dame, as workers and artisans revive every part of this medieval masterpiece. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Sharon Alfonsi.

I'm John Wertheim. I'm Nora O'Donnell. I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories and more tonight on 60 Minutes. Meet Tim's new Oreo Mocha Ice Caps with Oreo in every sip. Perfect for listening to the A-side, or B-side, or Bull-side. Order yours on the Tim's app today at participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has hardly opened its eyes, and the universe is new,

more mysterious, more beautiful than humanity's dreams. The largest telescope ever flown launched into deep space on Christmas Day 2021. Its primary mission is to reveal the Let There Be Light moment, when the stars and galaxies first ignited after the Big Bang. Recently, we got a look at some captivating images as Webb peers back toward the origin of everything. This is one of Webb's early deep dives into the cosmos. 250 hours of exposures that expand the imagination.

And all these little dots are stars? All these little dots are galaxies, some of which are bigger than our own. Astrophysicist Brent Robertson flew us through 130,000 galaxies, half never seen before, enormous swirls of billions of stars each, some like our own Milky Way and others, well, out of this world. We call this galaxy at the center of the screen the cosmic rose. Just by chance, it looks like a rose does. You can see that dusty, red, irregular galaxy. Space is more crowded than you might think. And actually, galaxies wind up interacting with each other. They actually will merge together. So I'm zooming in now on a pair of galaxies that

are merging together, interacting. You can see that they're disturbed because the gravity of one galaxy yanks the stars out of the other galaxy. They're running into each other. They're running into each other. Robertson, of the University of California, Santa Cruz, helps lead Webb's most ambitious mission, the Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey. Well, we've discovered the most distant galaxy in the universe, the one that is the furthest away from us that we currently know about. I'd like to share that with you. Can I show you some pictures? I'd love to see it. So as we zoom in, we keep going, we keep going, and now this red splotch that you see there, that galaxy, that's a galaxy, that galaxy is more than 33

billion light-years away. How long after the Big Bang, the beginning of the universe, did this galaxy form? It's amazing, it's only 320 million years after the Big Bang. The most distant galaxy so far, there on the right, doesn't look like much, but astronomers can fill textbooks by analyzing the spectrum of its light. So we can actually measure things like how fast it's forming stars, we can measure the amount of stars in the galaxy, we know the size because we know how far away it is, and we know the typical age of the stars in the galaxy. So we know a lot. The earliest galaxy so far formed when the universe was 2% of its current age. And the baby galaxy ignited stars at a furious pace. It's like a hummingbird. You know, the heartbeat

of this galaxy is so rapid. What do you mean by that? Well, this galaxy is forming stars at about the rate of the Milky Way, even though it's a hundred times less massive. So it really is like a hummingbird. The heartbeat of this galaxy is racing. T-minus 30 seconds and counting. More than a few human hearts were racing in 2021 as the $10 billion observatory readied for launch. Wow. Earlier that year, we were among the last to see Webb in California before it was folded into a 15-foot-wide nose cone. Well, somehow that's a lot bigger than I imagined. Twenty-five years in the making, Webb is named for an early NASA administrator.

Northrop Grumman engineer Amy Lowe showed us down below the silver-colored sun shield, big as a tennis court, and 21 feet of gold-plated mirrors for gathering light. There are 18 of these hexagonal mirrors, but when you fold them out, they all work in concert as one mirror. That's right. All 18 images will form one very nice, solid image. And liftoff. Decollage.

Decollage, liftoff from a tropical rainforest to the edge of time itself. James Webb begins a voyage back to the birth of the universe. Webb lofted on a European rocket into an orbit around the sun a million miles away. To set up for observations, engineers used a star to align those mirrors. But the image was speckled with what looked like artifacts of digital noise, which forced a closer look. These were not artifacts from the detector. These were not strange stars. The whole of the sky was filled with galaxies. There was no empty sky. And that's when I went, this telescope's going to be phenomenal.

Matt Mountain leads Webb's operations as president of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy. No empty sky. What do you mean by that? In almost every image we're taking now, we see galaxies everywhere. I mean, we took a simple picture of a planet in our own system, Neptune. You know, it was this beautiful orb just sitting there, and we saw some rings. And the background? Galaxies again.

It tells us that our universe is filled with galaxies. We knew this theoretically. But when you go out to the night sky, we're used to saying, well, look up at the night sky, we see those stars. We can no longer say that. We now have to say, look up at the night sky, and there are galaxies everywhere. We call it space because we thought there was nothing out there. There is no empty sky with James Webb. That is what we have discovered. Matt Mountain says that Webb is a reminder of how much we do not know. For example, galaxies are rushing away from each other at greater and greater speed, defying gravity.

It makes no sense. So scientists infer that there must be unseen elements at work. They call them dark energy and dark matter. And whenever you hear the term dark energy or dark matter, this means we don't know what it is. We're not that imaginative. But it is a force. It is 95% of our universe, and we have no idea what it is. Wait a minute. 95% of our universe is made up of dark energy and dark matter, and we don't know what it is?

Correct. We're lucky if we even understand 4% of our universe today. Astronomy is a very humbling discipline. Humbling, but with Webb. Look at this. Also thrilling. Look at this. Right!

This is Purdue University astronomer Dan Milosavlovich starstruck and chatting with a colleague. Yes! Yes! Look at the detail! Even Wilbur, who's not an astronomer, strained to see what the excitement was about. Mili Savlovic studies exploded stars, which were the furnaces that forged the first heavy elements from a cosmos of simple helium and hydrogen. Every time there's a supernova explosion, it's producing the raw materials for life. The iron in our blood, the calcium in our bones, the oxygen that we breathe.

Love that oxygen. All that is being manufactured in supernova explosions. The late astronomer Carl Sagan used to say we're all made of star stuff. That's exactly right. Webb reveals unprecedented detail at the center of these explosions. And that's what Webb is most sensitive to for our purposes, understanding what's happening inside the explosion that we couldn't see before because it only comes out in infrared light. Infrared light is what Webb is designed to see.

Like a night vision camera, the telescope is sensitive to heat radiation, which is all that remains of the light reaching us from the dawn of time. Trouble is, infrared is invisible to the human eye. When you first pull up the Webb data, what does that look like? Essentially, it looks like a blank screen. Elisa Pagan and Joe DiPasquale are astronomers and science imagers for the Space Telescope Science Institute. This is what a Webb infrared picture looks like until they match the data-filled darkness to colors of wonder.

So we take those longest wavelengths of infrared light and give those the red colors. The next shortest wavelengths would be green, and then the shortest wavelengths that we get from Webb are colored blue. And so just like how our eyes work, we take those three color channels, combine them together to create the full color images that we see from Webb. Among their favorite images is this cluster of stars with the not-so-wondrous name NGC 346. Cosmic dust sculpted into ripples by interactions between stars, and the Tarantula Nebula, a star-birthing nursery on a backdrop of galaxies. It occurs to me you're the first two people to see these images in human history. Yeah.

It's quite an honor. It is a great honor, and it does blow your mind every time. There will be many mind-blowing revelations. Webb is already the first to find carbon dioxide in the sky of a planet 700 light-years away. It will continue to look for planets with atmospheres that might support life. On the other end of the timescale, astrophysicist Erica Nelson of the University of Colorado Boulder thinks her team may have made a discovery that she says would break the theory of how the early universe formed. Either this is wrong or this is a huge discovery and we think that it's a huge discovery. More observations are needed,

but Nelson is investigating what may be five giant galaxies that appear to have formed much too quickly after the Big Bang. If they're confirmed, astronomy may have to revise the timeline of galaxy formation. And that's the most exciting piece of this, of this telescope, of this remarkable instrument we've put in space, is finding things that we didn't expect, that we can't explain, because that means that we have to revise our understanding of the universe. Brant Robertson, who showed us the earliest galaxy found so far by the James Webb telescope, told us the record for the earliest will not hold long.

How far back can you go to the origins of the universe? Well, JWST is so phenomenal that if you spend enough time, you could probably find any galaxy that ever formed in the universe. It's really that powerful. Will the history of astronomy be divided between before web and after web? Yes, I believe it will be. Matt Mountain, who manages web operations, told us the observatory may last up to 25 years, perhaps long enough to comprehend space and time and the origins of life.

We're seeing a universe we've never seen before. We thought it was there. We hoped it was there. But now we see it for the first time. 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. In the days of the Roman Colosseum, they called it bread and circuses. Leaders using the superficial appeal of entertainment to distract citizens from genuine problems. The term today, sportswashing.

The use of games and teams and stadiums to cleanse an image and launder a reputation. A country that has never won an Olympic gold medal, Saudi Arabia has suddenly emerged as a major player in global sport, hosting events, buying teams, and luring athletes with staggering contracts. Is this investment an attempt to diversify the economy and cater to younger citizens, as its leaders claim, or is it done to paper over human rights abuses, authoritarian rule, and even murder? We visited the kingdom to check out the sports world's new nerve center, and check out what the Saudis and their neighbors are getting for their money. Argentina, champions of the world's greatest game.

Argentina may have claimed the World Cup last December, but it wasn't the only country to emerge as a big winner. A controversial choice to host, the oil-rich Gulf state of Qatar threw more than $200 billion into staging the event and dribbled past criticism over its appalling human rights record. And another winner was next door. Saudi Arabia fielded the one team that beat Argentina. A triumph celebrated around the Arab world.

Not least by Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Saud, the country's minister of sport. It was unbelievable. It was just a milestone that we ticked that shows that if you put the effort and the right resources behind it, you can achieve impossible things. The improbable continued after the World Cup.

Saudi Arabia's enormous resources, that is, sloshing oil money, enticed Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal, a generational star, to play for a team in Riyadh. His salary? More than $200 million a season. That's right, $200 million. Roughly the annual playing wages of LeBron James, Steph Curry, Aaron Judge and Patrick Mahomes combined. Such a calm, composed fellow. The opening bell for Saudi Arabia's investment in global sports sounded three years ago

with the Clash on the Dunes, a heavyweight title fight. A few months later, the kingdom staged the world's richest horse race. A huge shock, but they love it here in Saudi Arabia. There's Formula One racing and a 10-year deal with the WWE. But to many, these mega events in Saudi Arabia are financial loss leaders being used to launder the image of a country

while cloaking repression and authoritarian rule. You've heard the term sports washing, this idea that countries can cover up bad acts through sports. Do you believe in the concept that a country can use sports this way? Not at all. I don't agree with that term because I think that if you go to different parts of the world, then you bring people together. Everyone should come, see Saudi Arabia, see it for what it is, and then make your decision. See it for yourself. If you don't like it, fine.

Which is precisely why we came to Saudi Arabia late last year, to see this unlikely sports hub for ourselves. December is the off-season for pro tennis, yet Riyadh was the site of an exhibition, studded with top 10 stars and embroidered with local touches. Falcons enlisted to help with the draw ceremony. But the real draw? Australia's Nick Kyrgios was blunt. What brought you here at the end? Well, money's pretty good, I'm not gonna lie. Despite deserts of empty seats and little in the way of television rights,

usually the lifeblood for sports, the players were paid millions just to show up. Magnificent. And Taylor Fritz, a Californian, earned a million dollars in prize money for winning the weekend event. The Saudis aren't just hosting events. Through the Kingdom's Sovereign Wealth Fund, they bought an English Premier League soccer team,

Newcastle United. We saw them for a visiting game against a local team, pointedly abandoning their usual striped kits for the green of the Saudi flag. Then there is, to date, Saudi's biggest swing in sports, the $2.5 billion Live Tour, which has divided golf. Dismissing this rival to the PGA Tour as, quote, an endless pit of money, Tiger Woods turned down $800 million from the Saudis to join Liv. Many other top players, including Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson, did switch their tour allegiances, both paid as they were north of $100 million.

This flood of Saudi money into sports is just absolutely, it's a disruptor. It's completely changing the face of sports. Is that the intention? Not at all. It adds a lot to the sport. You have to realize the impact this has. I mean, when winners of live golf events are making multiple times what Tiger Woods won the last time he won the Masters, that's a big economic change. It doesn't matter, I think, if the impact of increasing the participation of sports and the interest in that sport is growing, then why not? The sports minister insists that the massive investment is an essential pillar

of what is called Vision 2030, a $7 trillion plan by the kingdom's effective ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, to diversify the economy beyond oil while softening some of its most restrictive social conventions and laws. It's now permitted for women to drive, uncover their head, hold a passport, and travel without a male guardian. On the country's fields and in gyms and rec centers, young Saudis, male and female, are embracing sport. So are their moms. Rasha El-Khamis is the country's first female certified boxing coach. Back in 2019, she attended the Clash on the Dunes

fight. This is your country. These are two international superstars and you're not watching them on TV. You're watching them live here. What was that like? I would never imagine that me going to the fight, driving my car and attending the fight in my own country. So that's a massive transformation.

And you can feel that the change is tangible. Yet these changes come at a cost. Lujain El Hafloul led the Saudi women to drive movement and was punished for her activism. Arrested, charged with terrorism, and sentenced to prison, where she says she was tortured. Even after her release, she is prevented from leaving the country. Her sister Lina lives in exile and spoke with us remotely. When we talk about sports, of course we do want to have entertainment in Saudi Arabia. We do want to have this, but not at the expense of our freedoms. We don't want to be living in fear and not knowing if tomorrow they will break into our house

and take our sister or our daughter. I do not want to live in this country. I want to live in a country where I feel free, truly. Even if they have fancy sporting events? I want both. Her sister's harsh treatment, she says, underscores a stark paradox. At a time when social freedoms have expanded, political repression in Saudi Arabia has become more severe. You're saying this is window dressing,

this is cosmetic, and behind the games there's mass executions and repression like never before. Absolutely. Exactly. This is what's happening. The cultural shift goes beyond sports. Who would have pegged Saudi Arabia to start hosting an annual desert rave? Bruno Mars and DJ Khaled were among the headliners. It's all of a piece. Sports, entertainment, tourism. To marry it all, the crown prince turned to American impresario Jerry Inzarrillo. What's a guy from Brooklyn doing in a place like this? Creating magic, making a place welcoming for everybody to come see the kingdom, the birthplace of the kingdom.

Very exciting times. As-salamu alaykum. In his career in hospitality and entertainment, Inzirillo launched Atlantis in the Bahamas. Name a global celebrity and, be assured, Jerry has made their acquaintance. I've done five decades in tourism. My job is to welcome people and to create joy and festivity. With Vision 2030 now, we want people to come to Saudi. Today, he oversees a massive $63 billion development on the site where the Saudi state was born, converting it into a modern Xanadu

with homes for 100,000 people, luxury hotels and restaurants. We asked Nzarillo about his comfort level representing this autocracy. He told us he focuses on the positive. You know, I went to school in Las Vegas. And there's a gambling term that when you're way ahead, you're playing woodhouse money. You're winning? Not only am I winning, I've won. You know, there's an old country western song, Dance with the One who Brung You.

Who brung you? Who brung me here? Yeah. Vision 2030, a very benevolent, very loved king, and a very visionary, dynamic crown prince. But it's the less noble doings of the crown prince that have stained the country's reputation, both accelerating and complicating its foray into sports. A CIA report said MBS approved the 2018 assassination and dismembering of Washington Post journalist Jamel Khashoggi. Under MBS's rule, executions have drastically increased, including a mass beheading of 81 people in one day last March. The mildest criticism of the state,

even on Twitter, has been met with detention, torture, and long and arbitrary prison sentences. We've heard a lot about transition. We've seen it with our own eyes. But the concern is that this country right now is still not fit to hold international sporting events. We're not saying that we're perfect, but what I'm trying to say is that these things help us to achieve a better future for our population. I think no country would say they're perfect, but are you saying that every country has a leader that, according to the CIA, has ordered the murder of a journalist? Are you saying that every country has 81 headings in a single day?

And if the answer is no, doesn't it make this relative argument, this whataboutism, doesn't it make that irrelevant? Well, what I'm trying to say is that let's look at the good side about this. And, you know, you're just pinpointing certain topics that if we are going, you know, we had the mass shooting a couple of weeks ago in the U.S., does that mean that we don't host the World Cup in the U.S.? No. We should go to the U.S. We should get people together. Mass shooting is not a government actor. Let's be clear about that. Still, whatever, people died. But what I'm trying to say is that if we look at only the bad side, then we shouldn't do anything

Are there not universal so they're not? Basic thresholds you think need to be met as I said There's a lot of issues with a lot of countries, but then you mentioned that the order came from the crown prince And that's not true. There's no proof of that as we speak you're denying that the CIA's report that says I don't think the CIA report actually says that, if you look at it. The CIA report concluded Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, approved an operation to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Finally, they collide. Still, the games go on. So do the choices.

Just last month, FIFA, soccer's governing body not known for occupying ethical high ground, responded to protests from players and turned down Saudi tourism's sponsorship offer for this summer's Women's World Cup. These moral dilemmas will only intensify. When we were in Saudi Arabia, we saw a top-level tennis event, a top-level golf event had just been held. Bruno Mars had given a concert. What would your message be to the athletes and entertainers who are coming in to perform and compete?

My message is that why would you go to Saudi Arabia and stay silent on what is going on on the ground? Why won't you speak on behalf of the prisoners who have been muzzled and all the families that cannot speak? Because when you go to Saudi Arabia, you are part of this covering up machine. What do you think the purpose is of throwing around billions and billions of dollars into sports like this? I think the Saudi government, the Saudi regime and MBS, he wants people to think of Ronaldo

when they think about Saudi and not about Khashoggi. That's become the association now. We've gone from the murdered journalist to the star soccer player. Absolutely, yeah. Unfortunately. There are very few things that you can be certain of in life. But you can always be sure the sun will rise each morning. You can bet your bottom dollar that you'll always need air to breathe and water to drink.

And, of course, you can rest assured that with Public Mobile's 5G subscription phone plans, you'll pay the same thing every month. With all of the mysteries that life has to offer, a few certainties can really go a long way. Subscribe today for the peace of mind you've been searching for. Public Mobile, different is calling. Almost exactly four years ago, the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris caught fire. It was one of those 21st century moments that people around the world experienced together, staring in horror at live video on their smartphones and televisions. For the people of France, it was especially traumatic, because Notre-Dame has been a powerful symbol, both sacred and secular, since medieval times. French President

Emmanuel Macron pledged that Notre Dame would be reopened by the end of 2024. He couldn't have known then how hard it would be to keep that promise. But on this Easter Sunday, four years later, the resurrection of the great cathedral seems within reach. Flames tore through the roof of Notre Dame on the evening of April 15th, 2019. And spread with incredible speed and ferocity, engulfing her 200-foot spire. Everybody stops. Jean-Louis Georgelin is the man now in charge of restoring Notre Dame. And a lot of people in France cry

because they feel that something very deep in the soul of France, in the spirit of France, was about to collapse. Only a heroic effort by the Paris fire brigade saved Notre-Dame from collapse, as a few staffers raced through falling embers to rescue precious relics. Philippe Villeneuve, the cathedral's chief architect, was out of town that night and raced back to Paris. He was devastated by what he saw. I've said that the little boy who was in love with the cathedral and the architect who was in charge of it died that day.

And another man took over and said, I have to save the cathedral. It's my mission. It's my duty. Villeneuve now shares that duty. If he's the artist who knows every inch of stone in Notre Dame, retired Army General Georges Lende is the commander, called back to meet that five-year deadline. I will relax only when this will be done.

What does this cathedral mean to the people of France? The Cathedral Notre Dame de Paris is in some way the heart of France. For the Catholic, of course, for the Christian, but for everybody. All the great events of France in some way or another took place here in the cathedral. Napoleon crowned himself emperor in Notre Dame in 1804. In 1944, as Paris was liberated from Nazi occupation, General Charles de Gaulle braved sniper fire to enter the cathedral. In many ways, you could say that she's the people's palace.

Agnès Poirier is a journalist and author who lives and works just across the River Seine from Notre Dame. She and her neighbors watch the most horrifying moment the night of the fire, the collapse of that imposing spire. I remember the scream of the crowd saying no, as if they couldn't conceive such a thing. That spire meant so much to Philippe Villeneuve that he had it tattooed on his arm. They say that I have Notre Dame in my skin, he told us. It's very practical because when I have to explain how the spire fell, it's always better to show that from here to there, it tipped over. The huge spire, made of oak and covered in lead tiles,

crashed through two of the stone vaults which form the ceiling of Notre Dame, leaving gaping holes at the top and heaps of broken stone and charred wood on the floor below. The top priority was to shore up the grand cathedral's weakened structure. Huge temporary wooden supports were placed under the surviving stone vaults of her ceiling and under the flying buttresses to save this prime example of medieval engineering. We have to check every stone in the cathedral, every pillar. At the same time, a huge decontamination project was mounted to remove lead tiles that had melted from the burning roof and spire and all the toxic lead dust spread by the fire.

Four years on, workers still take extraordinary precautions against lead poisoning. We had to wear disposable hazmat suits to enter the cathedral. Tons of rubble had to be removed. Paintings and stained glass windows were taken away for restoration. And twisted steel scaffolding erected for ongoing restoration work had to be dismantled. So you were in the process of restoring the spire when the fire broke out in 2019. Did your restoration project have anything to do with the fire breaking out? An investigation is still underway, Philippe Villeneuve told us, and no cause of the fire has been identified.

But personally, it's unbearable. This fire never should have happened, and it did. Inevitably, I feel responsible. At that point in our interview, Villeneuve switched to English with a rueful smile. In reality, I'm totally destroyed. Really? Yes. I so want to rebuild Notre Dame, it's because I want to rebuild myself.

The fire's deeply emotional impact on Philippe Villeneuve was mirrored around the world. Nearly a billion dollars in private donations have been pledged to rebuild Notre Dame, most of it from France, 50 million dollars from Americans. I know many people in the United States contributed. They can contribute again. They can continue to contribute. The cash is always running. If they want to give me money, I need. In the weeks immediately following the fire, all sorts of ideas were floated for how centuries-old Notre Dame might be given a touch of avant-garde. And all those architects throughout the world said, yes, let's have a roof garden,

let's have a golden torch, and let's have a titanium spire. You know, even I, for 20 seconds, I thought, hmm, to add some 21st century genius to Notre Dame, why not? Chief architect Philippe Villeneuve had a very simple answer, why not? An historic monument, a cathedral, is not something to be played with, he told us. Notre-Dame had been standing for 850 years with a wooden frame and a lead roof. So wood is the way to go. In the end, President Macron and a special committee agreed to rebuild Notre Dame exactly as she had been. And with the same materials. Stone, wood, and lead. How is it that the traditionalists won out?

Well, I think wisdom won. Notre Dame's signature spire was a fairly recent addition. Images of the cathedral from the mid-1800s show her without a spire and in an advanced state of decay. The cathedral was in great disrepair, was it not? It was about to collapse, but of neglect, not of fire. There were even proposals to demolish Notre-Dame before the cathedral crumbled on its own. Instead, the French government hired a young architect named Violette Le Duc. He created that famous spire.

So you are rebuilding the spire exactly as Violette Le Duc? Yes. Are you using his original drawings? We were lucky, he said, because it was extremely well documented. We have the drawings of Violette Le Duc, the sketches, the surveys. We have everything needed to be able to remake it. A thousand French oak trees were felled for the new spire, then fine-cut by carpenters in eastern France.

In other workshops around the country, the cathedral's organ, the largest in France, and many of its stained-glass windows were restored. How many workers and craftsmen do you have on this project? If we take into account all the people in France, it's about 1,000 people. On the plaza in front of Notre-Dame, a huge tent has been erected, where stonecutters and sculptors are recreating Gothic gargoyles and adornments damaged in the fire. Philippe Villeneuve supervises every detail. I'll make them put their fingers on the layers of the original sculpture, he said, and then on the layer they're sculpting. So he wants you to feel it, not just look at it.

Yeah, yeah. And that works? Yeah, I think too. Danée Leblanc is just 23 years old, sculpting and chiseling to recreate a floral detail carved hundreds of years ago. We try to remake things identically,

she said, but we are also trying to understand the intention of the original sculptors, so we look at the traces left by their tools. We were given rare access to the painstaking restoration of Notre Dame as workers and artisans revived the cathedral's exterior and her interior. Oh, my God.

The cathedral's great rose windows have been meticulously cleaned. Look at this. And every inch of stone coated with latex, which, when peeled away, leaves the surface gleaming. We found restorers, Mathilde Maire and Aude Massimi, working on painted stone sculptures, depicting scenes from the life of Christ. How old is this? This part of the cathedral, she said, was built at the beginning of the 14th century.

These sculptures are medieval. The restorers are carefully wiping every surface with small cotton swabs dipped in a water-based cleaning solution. So I think you have to have a lot of patience. Yes, she says, you have to be calm and know that it will take time, but it's a pleasure. You can see she's wiping away the centuries. A 600-ton maze of scaffolding has been built inside Notre Dame to support all the work, especially the rebuilding of the spire. General Georges Lannes took us up through it,

two-thirds of the way on a construction elevator. We reached the top, climbing steps and ladders. This is incredible. We were standing 100 feet above the cathedral floor, in exactly the spot where the flaming spire collapsed. Four years ago, there was nothing here but a vast hole. The drama took place here, and we have to rebuild the vault of the transept.

The spire will be there, 66 meters high. At the top of the old 200-foot spire sat a copper sculpture of a rooster, the symbol of the French people. The day after the fire, Philippe Villeneuve found it on a lower roof, a bit mangled but miraculously untouched by the flames. It has been left as it was found and will be put on display in the restored cathedral. Can I tell you, Villeneuve says, that I plan to put a new rooster on top of a new spire one year to the day before the reopening of the cathedral.

There will still be scaffolding, but the frame of the spire will again be in the sky of Paris. And the spire will rest, repose. Rest? Rest on these four pillars you see here. You see? Be magnificent.

Magnificent, yes. For the glory of God and France. Preparing tonight's story, we were reminded of the role Notre Dame, a soaring prayer in stone, has played in the life of Paris and all of France. Our own houses of prayer are as often prayers in brick or wood, as of granite or limestone, but they are every bit as vital to their communities. Houses of prayer are often

houses of refuge for the hungry, houses of hospitality for the addicted, the alcoholic, and the abused. In small towns and big cities, in immigrant communities, and among people in spiritual need, our churches and synagogues, our mosques and temples, grand or simple, are our own Notre Dames. I'm Bill Whitaker. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes. Happy Easter, a joyous Passover, and a peaceful Orthodox Holy Week.