BOB ABERNETHY: Now, resurrection in Louisville: the story of how restoring the Catholic cathedral has created a new vision for a decaying downtown and an annual party to celebrate all faiths.

Unidentified Man #1: And they're off in the Kentucky Derby.

ABERNETHY: Louisville is home to the Kentucky Derby and bourbon whiskey, the Louisville Slugger and Muhammad Ali, the Presbyterian Church, Southern Baptists, Catholics and Hindus, and Bosnian Muslims. There are 5,000 Muslims now of all types in Louisville. Recently, 60 different religious groups displayed their traditions and explained their doctrines in this year's second Louisville Festival of Faiths.

Father RONALD KNOTT: Yes, if somebody comes to me and wants to be a Roman Catholic, I'll throw open my arms, but if they don't, I don't need to say, well, then, sort of "To hell with you." So, it's how to live in a world of difference, without violence and disrespect.

ABERNETHY: The Louisville resurrection began in the 1980s when the Catholic cathedral was all but falling apart, physically and as a parish. Archbishop Thomas Kelly brought in Father Ronald Knott to fix things up, and he did, by opening the cathedral's doors to everyone who felt left out. The parish rolls tripled.

Father KNOTT: My emphasis was on welcoming alienated Catholics, so we attracted a lot of divorced, remarried Catholics, gay Catholics, Catholics who had been away for a long time.

ABERNETHY: Father Knott's vision was also of Louisville's Cathedral of the Assumption becoming like a European cathedral of the Middle Ages, a religious and cultural center for everyone. So the Catholic archdiocese created an interfaith foundation. Protestants, Jews, Catholics, and others, the whole Louisville power structure, raised $16 million, not only to refurbish the cathedral, but to begin to revitalize the inner city's dying downtown as well.