Paris cathedral Mass comforts Kentucky students after Louvre heist interrupts class trip

(OSV News) -- Participating in Mass together at the beautiful Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris brought comfort and peace to the students and chaperones from Trinity High School after being present during the historic Oct. 19 jewel heist from the Louvre just hours earlier.

"This was our last day" of the school's Traveling Classroom trip to Europe, said Emily Hernandez, principal of Trinity High School in Whitesville, Kentucky, who was one of the three adult chaperones who led the group of 20 sophomores, juniors and seniors.

Traveling Classroom, launched by the late Father Richard Powers in 1999, is a program at Trinity that introduces students to the wider world outside Kentucky by visiting countries across the globe. Prior to the trip, which is held over fall break, the students spend a year studying and learning about the countries they will visit.

Hernandez said their group was scheduled for a 9 a.m. tour and that they arrived and were in line by 8:45 a.m. She said the students were looking forward to the tour since their tickets would permit them to stay in the museum as long as they wished that day.

This would be their final day in Europe before flying home to the United States on Monday, Oct. 20, and they planned to attend Sunday Mass at Notre Dame Cathedral a few hours later.

"We went to see the 'Mona Lisa' first," said Hernandez. Then they visited "The Winged Victory of Samothrace," one of the most famous statues at the Louvre.

Several students wanted to see the Greek statues in the Gallery of Apollo, so their group began to head that way.

Hernandez said one of the students heard the sound of "power tools" and asked if the museum was doing renovations.

And then, "we were five steps away from the entry to the gallery when people began to exit with terrified faces," Hernandez told The Western Kentucky Catholic, the news outlet of the Diocese of Owensboro.

They joined with the other confused and troubled visitors hurrying out of the gallery and were told to wait in the lobby as the museum went under lockdown. They waited there, not knowing what was happening, for the next hour and a half.

"We didn't know until we were out of the Louvre. … We never saw the thieves," said Hernandez of the robbery, in which nine items were stolen from the Gallery of Apollo by several masked thieves. No one was injured, according to the BBC, and the suspects were still at large as of Oct. 24.

According to news reports, a nationwide manhunt for the perpetrators was underway, as
French authorities were actively analyzing DNA, fingerprints and other evidence left at the scene.

Hernandez said she believes the sound of power tools heard by the student turned out to be the chainsaw that was used to break open the window into the gallery.

By the time they were permitted to exit the museum, "most of the students had called home," said Hernandez. "Some were fairly calm; others were very concerned."

After the emotional whirlwind, the Trinity group decided to head to Notre Dame early, which worked in their favor. Despite planning to attend Mass at noon, they discovered that the Mass was actually at 11:30 a.m., so they were right on time.

"After Mass, everyone was calm," said Hernandez, and added that her main takeaway was how the students had looked out for one another during the chaos. "It was an intense hour-and-a-half, but I think our students were remarkable."

Apart from the harrowing Louvre incident, Hernandez said their trip to Paris, Normandy, France, and London was "a phenomenal experience."