The neo-gothic church has 44 large stained glass windows and murals completed over a 17-year period by the Vatican painter Luigi Gregori.

Claude-Jean Allouez, S.J., established the Ste-Marie-des-Lacs mission on the south shore of the St. Mary's lake, in order to serve the local Potawatomi tribe along with French trappers and settlers in the area.

Edward Sorin, C.S.C., established the University of Notre Dame, the community held religious services in the small log cabin built by Stephen Badin.

That summer, university leaders purchased a larger bell in Cincinnati weighing 3,220 pounds (1,460 kg) and installed it in one of the church towers after it was blessed on the feast of the Assumption.

[17] The original plan featured a cruciform church two hundred feet in length with three naves and a transept, a dome over the crossing, two large bell-towers, and a capacity of 2,000.

Alexis Granger, C.S.C., and Irish-born Brother Charles Borromeo Harding, C.S.C., a self-taught campus builder, were part of the planning and building.

[13] Work on the foundations for the new church began in the spring of 1870, and the cornerstone was laid on 31 May 1871, with six bishops present, including Cincinnati Archbishop John Purcell.

[13] Bishop Joseph Gregory Dwenger finally consecrated the new sanctuary on 15 August 1888, during the celebrations for the golden jubilee of the ordination of Edward Sorin.

[9] To pay for the windows, due to the financial troubles Notre Dame was in given the Long Depression and the 1879 fire of the main building, sponsors were solicited.

Additionally, Notre Dame received a ten percent commission on all windows ordered due to Sorin's influence, who publicized the company in America.

The Carmel du Mans Glassworks realized the potential publicity of a large order in America, and hence did a high-quality job and also signed all their windows with the company name, which they previously had not done.

The choir stalls were removed from the presbytery and moved to the Lady Chapel and the stations of the Cross painted by Gregori were put in storage.

On 17 January 1992, Pope John Paul II raised the Church of the Sacred Heart to the status of Minor basilica, which had been Sorin's desire since 1888.

Notre Dame architects Francis Kervick and Vincent Fagan designed the work for a memorial door on the east transept of the basilica.

The final design featured a door surmounted by a pointed arch and flanked by two buttresses, all in gothic style and yellow brick as the rest of the basilica.

Initially, the memorial was meant to commemorate all 2,500 Notre Dame affiliates who fought in the war, including future presidents Rev.

However, later revisions to the plan reduced it to two plaques flanking the door and commemorating the 46 Notre Dame students, alumni, and faculty who died in combat.

The first is a high altar in Gothic Revival style, a graceful object in bronze built in shops of Froc-Robert in Paris for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, during which it won a design award.

The neogothic style of the frescoes is similar to that of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, which was done by Bernardino Riccardi, Pietro Gagliardi, Tommaso Greggia, and Raffaele Casnedi in the mid-1800s.

The saints depicted on the left side of the nave: Apollonia, Anthony, Bernard of Clairvaux, Dominic, Francis, Stanislaus Kostka, Aloysius Gonzaga, Rose of Lima, Agnes.

[39] At the crossing, the ceiling is gold instead of blue, marking the sanctuary of the church, and is adorned with the figures of the four evangelists and Old testament prophets: Isaiah holding a scroll, David with a harp, Jeremiah with a scroll, and Moses with the tablet of the law, plus the evangelists Matthew (angel), John (eagle), Luke (ox), and Mark (lion) from the New Testament.

Mary is crowned with a tiara of roses by Christ and God the Father under a dove symbolizing the Holy Spirit; the group is surrounded by figures from the Old and New Testaments holding scrolls and quills.

Saints and prophets are arranged all around: St. Patrick is depicted behind St. Mark, holding a clover, and was added by Gregori after requests from the student body to honor its Irish heritage.

In the foreground there are the figures of Saint Helena, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, and Saint Macarius, the bishop of Jerusalem, who are said to have found the Cross in 325 AD.The 116 stained glass windows consist of more than 1,200 individual panels and were designed and made by the Carmel du Mans Glassworks, owned first the Carmelite nuns in Le Mans, France and then by Eugène Hucher and associates.

The Great Recession of 2008 halted the project by taking a hit on the university endowment and benefactions, and the idea of replacing the basilica organ was tabled indefinitely.

The basilica closed in Christmas 2013 for the first phase of the organ project, which included a 44-day replacement of the church carpeting with 25,000 slate-colored porcelain tiles to improve acoustics.

Meanwhile, a third Fritts commission, sponsored by Denis ’67 and Susan McCusker, saw a studio organ designed in 2014 for the Walton Choir Rehearsal Hall in Coleman-Morse Center.

The organ's first full performance test occurred during the annual Blue Mass honoring police, firefighters and emergency medical personnel on October 6, with the tuning of last rank of pipes in the following weeks.

[50][51] Bishop Daniel Jenky returned to campus to dedicate the instrument on 20 January 2017 which featured a recital by university professor and organist Craig Cramer.

The final bell, which is one of the grandest in the United States was blessed in 1888, during Father Sorin's Golden jubilee and it is named for St. Anthony of Padua, it is an immense non swinging bourdon, more than seven feet tall and weighing 15,400 pounds.