BREE SOLSTAD: She also acquired a 13th-century Gothic altar and a stone kissed by St. Joan herself after praying to the Blessed Virgin before battle. That stone now rests behind the altar.

Today I stepped inside a 600-year-old Catholic chapel. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Built around 1420 in a small French village near Lyon, the chapel was already standing when St. Joan of Arc was fighting to save France. For centuries, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was offered within its walls. Then came the French Revolution, abandonment, and ruin. In the 1920s, a wealthy American woman devoted to St. Joan purchased the chapel, had it dismantled stone by stone, shipped across the Atlantic, and rebuilt on her Long Island estate. She also acquired a 13th-century Gothic altar and a stone kissed by St. Joan herself after praying to the Blessed Virgin before battle. That stone now rests behind the altar. Then, in 1962, disaster struck. A fire ravaged the adjoining French château. The medieval chapel survived. It was eventually dismantled AGAIN, loaded onto trucks, and painstakingly reconstructed on the campus of Marquette University, where it stands today. Six centuries. The Hundred Years' War. The Protestant Reformation. The French Revolution. Two world wars. An ocean crossing. A devastating fire. Two relocations. And today, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is STILL offered within these ancient walls. Kings have come and gone. Empires have fallen. The Church remains. St. Joan of Arc, ora pro nobis. ⚜️

— Bree Solstad (@BreeSolstad) October 16, 2026

Today I stepped inside a 600-year-old Catholic chapel. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Built around 1420 in a small French village near Lyon, the chapel was already standing when St. Joan of Arc was fighting to save France. For centuries, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was offered within its walls. Then came the French Revolution, abandonment, and ruin. In the 1920s, a wealthy American woman devoted to St. Joan purchased the chapel, had it dismantled stone by stone, shipped across the Atlantic, and rebuilt on her Long Island estate. She also acquired a 13th-century Gothic altar and a stone kissed by St. Joan herself after praying to the Blessed Virgin before battle. That stone now rests behind the altar.

Then, in 1962, disaster struck. A fire ravaged the adjoining French château. The medieval chapel survived. It was eventually dismantled AGAIN, loaded onto trucks, and painstakingly reconstructed on the campus of Marquette University, where it stands today. Six centuries. The Hundred Years' War. The Protestant Reformation. The French Revolution. Two world wars. An ocean crossing. A devastating fire. Two relocations. And today, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is STILL offered within these ancient walls. Kings have come and gone. Empires have fallen. The Church remains. 

St. Joan of Arc, ora pro nobis.