Sacred Paris A guide to the churches, synagogues, and the grand mosque in the City of Light

Paris is a city of churches, many of them famed not just in religion, but also in architecture, literature, civic life, and history. Cahill (The Streets of Paris, 2017) inventories in guidebook format almost 30 of the city's most distinctive "churches, mosques, synagogues, chapels." While Notre Dame without question is the city's most famous church, religious buildings in every arrondissement have their own charms and often remarkable histories. Cahill delves into the events and personalities that arose in and around these hallowed places. Focusing on architectural concerns, she also lets readers in on some of the churches' outstanding musical and arts programming. Cahill celebrates the unique social ministries for the underserved and new immigrants of individual sacred places, and her brief accounts of Frédéric Chopin's and Gabriel Fauré's funerals at La Madeleine are moving. This useful guidebook seamlessly weaves together art, literature, music, and history, and it makes a great armchair read for those who can't tread Paris' boulevards. Photographs by Marion Ranoux and detailed transit directions help guide travelers.

Cahill (Hidden Gardens of Paris) encourages readers to explore the sacred side of Paris in this handy travel guide with a focus on "traditional settings for prayer and worship." From the well-trodden naves of Notre Dame and Sainte Chapelle to lesser-known locations such as the Marais district's Synagogue de Nazareth or Saint-Jean Lutheran on rue de Grenelle, travelers will appreciate Cahill's colorful histories of people and places, recommendations for libraries and cafés, and carefully plotted directions. Cahill's anecdotes reveal the multifaceted history of religious practice in Paris, including the "convulsionnaires" of the 18th century, who threw fits of contortion in the cemetery at Saint Médard, and the 1792 September Massacres, when revolutionaries beheaded dozens of monks. Cahill focuses heavily on Catholic churches, and while she includes Lutheran, Muslim, and Jewish sites, her engagement with those is comparatively superficial, as when she reduces Lutheranism to an aesthetic of "simplicity" and "symbolism." Despite shallow takes on faith traditions outside of Catholicism, this succeeds in cutting its own path as a unique travel guide. (Apr.)