For those who love a good news story, especially of the historic variety, this past weekend was a glorious one. After going up in hellish flames five years ago, the world sang the words of psalm 24 – “Open wide, you ancient doors” – to herald the fact that Notre Dame Cathedral is ready to receive it once again.
The great and the good gathered to mark the occasion, with political and religious leaders, as well as consequential donors, among those assembled for the reopening of what is perhaps Christendom’s most famous monument.
President Macron was of course in attendance, as was President-elect Trump, Prince William, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, Polish President Andrzej Duda, Italian PM Giorgia Meloni and many more, in one of the sparse occasions of our current secular era that saw major politicking carried out in the shadow of the Church and its developments.
Although “in the shadow of the Church” is maybe too strong a way to phrase it. After all, the rebuilding of Notre Dame was expedited and supported by the French state in a manner unusual for building or restoration projects, even those of cultural significance. This was exemplified by, for example, Macron’s pledge that the cathedral would be rebuilt within five years, and the government’s extensive legislative efforts to ensure that it would be.
Indeed, it was very much the spirit of France, rather than the Church or the divine, that was moving Mr Macron on Saturday night, as his social media posts made clear.
“C’est la France, c’est le monde. Du cœur, merci. This is France, this is the world. Together, we rebuilt Notre-Dame. From the bottom of my heart, thank you,” his pinned tweet reads.
Similarly, during his Notre Dame-induced social media blitz over the weekend, he wrote such things as “Historic moment. Together we rebuilt Notre-Dame. Heart of Paris. Soul of France. Jewel of humanity”.
And, “To our firefighters and all the forces who saved Notre-Dame. To all the artisans and companions who made it even more beautiful. To patrons and generous donors around the world. To all those who made it possible to keep the promise”.
Now, before anyone gets me wrong, I am not for one second suggesting that any of these sentiments are wrong or incorrect. Very far from it. I think the restoration of what is truly one of man’s great cultural achievements is a thing to be shouted from the rooftops, and that those who played a part should be thanked and praised for putting their talents to such noble use.
What I do take issue with though is an absence, and it’s an absence of such significance – in this, admittedly religious, writer’s opinion – that it undermines the wonderful scenes we witnessed on Saturday evening in Paris.
The absence of God.
For, being a cathedral, it was for the glorification of God – and in Notre Dame’s case, esteeming his mother – that it was built, whether you agree with that objective or not. It is what it is, it was for what it was for. Notre Dame was re-built, to everyone’s wonderment, in just five years because there was a template to follow, even if some innovations were introduced. It was built in the first place, however, with no template but a desire to worship.
Secular France, and most the world over, lacks that motivation, and so very arguably lacks the ability to conceive of such projects as Notre Dame.
In an interesting article for Unherd earlier today titled, Notre Dame proves the West can build if it wants to, the ever-insightful Mary Harrington wrote that “Notre Dame illustrates that if the idea of a building is already present in the collective cultural consciousness, and everyone wants it to happen, doing the actual work is relatively easy”.
I generally agree with Ms Harrington’s point, but would add that not all buildings are the same. Political will, with broad public support, could see any number of houses built and infrastructural projects completed. I’ll broaden that to include attractive civic institutions, too.
Not Notre Dame. A building like that does not exist in the “collective cultural consciousness” or the “collective memory of the people of France” as she writes elsewhere, but in the pious hearts of those workers who, across the roughly two centuries it took to build, poured their efforts into a project they most likely wouldn’t live to see the end of. Same for those building the other great cathedrals and basilicas of Europe.
To illustrate this point, a tale told by one of the Church’s saints, Josemaría Escrivá, in a homily given in 1960, spoke of how he used to enjoy climbing up the towers of Burgos cathedral “to get a close view of the ornamentation at the top, a veritable lacework of stone that must have been the result of very patient and laborious craftsmanship”.
As he chatted with the men who’d accompany him on these climbs, he’d point out that “none of the beauty of this work could be seen from below”.
“To give them a material lesson in what I had been previously explaining to them, I would say: ‘This is God’s work, this is working for God! To finish your personal work perfectly, with all the beauty and exquisite refinement of this tracery stonework’.”
While the resurrection of Notre Dame is a mighty achievement and one the people of France can rightly rejoice about, over and above the rejoicing of other nations, it’s worth asking whether their efforts would be better off building up those faithful foundations upon which Notre Dame was originally built rather than fixing its flourishes.
Of course, both are possible – the restoration and the refueling of faith – but we, as much as France, are rejoicing over the one while neglecting the other. Will that imbalance come at the cost of Europe’s future cultural heritage? Time will tell, but I’ll confidently wager ahead of time that yes it will.