They kneel inside a small but ornate cathedral in Queens, bearing gifts of candles, jewelry, medicine and even a pair of crutches for an icon said to work miracles.

Others of us were laughing like children," she explained from the podium of the ornate cathedral.

The music of the Magnus Liber displays a connection to the emerging Gothic style of architecture; just as ornate cathedrals were built to house holy relics, organa were written to elaborate Gregorian chant, which too was considered holy.

Then, trying to impress on the young girl the emotion the mourners felt for the life and death of her father, he asked the nearly 700 people inside the ornate Gothic cathedral to applaud for Arielle, "to show your honor and respect for her daddy."

He can hear you more easily when you are ploughing a field, or down on your knees by your bed, than He can in some ornate cathedral, surrounded by the painted and perfumed.

Now a scenic road ran round the far bank of the Tagus, providing panoramic views of a tumble of buildings the colour of honey in the sun, descending precipitously from the ornate cathedral and the severe lines of the Alcazar.

Meander down winding alleys and step inside ornate cathedrals - in fact, Pamplona's Gothic cathedral is one of the most important religious buildings in Spain.

"The dialogue has begun," the mediator in the talks, Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia, said tonight as he sat surrounded by the Government's chief negotiator and 18 rebel representatives in the ornate 16th-century cathedral where the talks are being held.

Even the biggest and most ornate cathedral seemed suddenly shabby, next to her.

The ornate cathedral of Cologne, West Germany, has known scaffolding for over 25 years, as its highly friable sandstone falls to pieces, ogival arch by ogival arch.