Posted on 12/10/2021 7:07:09 AM PST by Heartlander
“Vandalism has its newspapers, its cliques, its schools, its chairs, its public, its reasons. Vandalism has the bourgeoisie on its side. … There is nothing less popular among us than these sublime edifices made by the people and for the people. We hold against them all the crimes throughout the past to which they have been witness. We would prefer to erase our entire history. We devastate, pulverize, destroy, demolish out of national spirit. By being good Frenchmen, we have become excellent Welshmen.” -Victor Hugo, War on the Demolishers!
The world froze as Notre-Dame burned.
The scene was unforgettable. Notre-Dame de Paris’s towering spire—built by Gothic revivalist Eugene Viollet-le-Duc after the French Revolution—was swallowed in flame, belching out smoke as it wilted in the heat. The cathedral’s attic, nicknamed la forêt (“the forest”) for its medieval wooden frame, crumbled into the nave of the church, leaving a smattering of ashen beams and stone beside the Pieta statue. Firemen rushed into the burning structure to retrieve treasured relics from the reliquary, including the Crown of Thorns and a sliver from the True Cross.
The people of France were devastated. Many wept in the streets. In nearby Place Saint-Michel, rows of young people knelt and prayed the rosary. “Paris is beheaded,” an onlooker told the New York Times.
By the time the fire was contained, the spire and two thirds of the roof were destroyed. Parisian schoolchildren showed up to class the next day with bags of blackened timber, plastic urns with the charred remains of fallen Notre-Dame blown about by the night’s wind.
French president Emanuel Macron promised to restore the cathedral, calling it France’s “destiny.” A global outpouring of donations—nearly one billion dollars—gave him the resources to do so. Within days of the fire, however, the French government made it clear that they did not want to “restore” the cathedral. They wanted a new Notre-Dame. Two days after the spire collapsed, prime minister Edouard Philippe announced a global architectural contest to “redesign” the fallen spire in a style “adapted to…our times.”
Designs for a new roof and spire came in from architects around the globe. The proposals ranged from unsightly to profane. Alexandre Chassang proposed a misshapen glass spire resembling The Shard in London. Vincent Callebaut outlined a “green” option, inspired by the pagan concept of “Palingenesis.” French landscape architect Clément Willemin told the New York Times that he wanted to create a rooftop garden “dedicated to all the species of animals and plants that we have been erasing off the planet” because the love of nature “is our one and only universal religion.”
Willemin looked at the ruins of Notre-Dame—a structure built with the pennies of paupers and sustained by the religious conviction of an entire civilization—and proposed a rooftop garden dedicated to the Tristan moorhen. He gave the French government what it asked for—a Notre-Dame for “our times,” a monument that observes the fake religions of the ruling class. The proposals were a symptom of the disease that inspired the contest.
The vandals were thwarted for a time. Catholics and traditionalist architects around the globe expressed horror at the proposals. Philippe Villeneuve, the architect who oversees France’s historic structures, threatened to resign if the spire was not faithfully restored. “I will restore it identically and it will be me, or they will build a modern spire and it won’t be me,” Villeneuve told reporters. In a statement, officials from Macron’s office said the president had “become convinced of the need to restore Notre-Dame de Paris in the most consistent manner possible to its last complete, coherent, and known state.” The exterior of Paris’s crowned jewel was saved.
The inside of the cathedral was not so lucky. Father Gilles Drouin, an advisor to the archbishop of Paris, was charged with leading the restoration of Notre-Dame’s interior. His plans, leaked to the Telegraph late last month, would give the interior what Willimen had proposed for the exterior: a redesign that sullies the sanctity of Notre-Dame. According to Fr. Drouin’s plan, confessionals, altars, and statues would be supplemented or replaced by modern-art installations. New light displays and sound effects would create “emotional spaces” and “discovery trails” for visitors. Drouin said the changes would make the cathedral more accessible to visitors, “who are not always from a Christian culture.”
He gets the matter exactly backwards.
What people who are not “from a Christian culture” need is Christianity. They do not need gimmicks. They do not need mood lighting, or modern-art installations, or “catechumenical paths,” or aggiornamento. They do not need half-baked, pre-chewed, watered-down versions of the Gospel that ape the therapeutic jargon of modern culture. They do not need abstract murals that obscure the clear and unbearable call to “pick up your cross.” They do not need an “emotional space” in lieu of a confessional, a “discovery trail” in lieu of an altar, or soft, soapy music to drown out the piercing silence of God.
This is why the masses cried at the sight of Notre-Dame ablaze. The culture that produced it is gone. The men who labored to construct a building worthy of the Divine were cursed with successors who do not understand the civilization they inherited. We are left, as French author Victor Hugo said, with the “laudable regret” that “we no longer possess the genius of centuries past.”
Some people accused Muslims of starting the fire. This article makes it look like it was an inside job.
Maybe they can get “Little P” Bush to consult. After all, he is responsible for the plan for “re-imaginging” the Alamo.
Perhaps the walls can be adorned with original Bidens.
“What people who are not “from a Christian culture” need is Christianity. They do not need gimmicks. They do not need mood lighting, or modern-art installations, or “catechumenical paths,” or aggiornamento. They do not need half-baked, pre-chewed, watered-down versions of the Gospel that ape the therapeutic jargon of modern culture. They do not need abstract murals that obscure the clear and unbearable call to “pick up your cross.” They do not need an “emotional space” in lieu of a confessional, a “discovery trail” in lieu of an altar, or soft, soapy music to drown out the piercing silence of God.”
Many of these observations also apply to other churches.
Why not just replace it as it was?
Maybe they will throw out that old Christian stuff like altars and crucifixes and put up art by Hunter Biden and Maplethorpe. You know, make it representative of our proud modern culture.
Especially the part of them we can't see.
Not according to code?................
Code shmode ala mode.
I dont think the old growth forests are around to produce such a structure.
You know how bureaucrats are. If the code calls for GFI outlets every 5 meters minimum of one meter off the ground they had better be there!.................
“Destroying Notre Dame”
Usually this is the job of the SEC.
Notre-Dame is not a religious building anymore. Under French law, all these churches are owned by the government. That’s the only reason that nitwit Macron would have any say in its restoration in the first place.
The author should stop this silly nonsense about “a structure built with the pennies of paupers and sustained by the religious conviction of an entire civilization.” There is no longer any religious conviction in France that would be reflected in a magnificent cathedral. The usurpation of the church’s power by the secular government is all the evidence you need of that. Expecting the radically secular government of France to properly restore the legacy of Notre-Dame is like asking radical Muslims to help build a synagogue.
Speaking of GFI outlets . . . I had a room added to my house and it included several outside outlets. The electricians placed huge, unspeakably ugly clear plastic boxes on each outlet. I asked if they couldn’t use the same sleek, flat covers that were used on the existing outside outlets. Heavens no! Wouldn’t be to code! But it was clear they’d heard this same complaint many times before.
.
Is that a for real?
Think of the riches that were poured into building so many grand cathedrals which were/are of no essence whatsoever in promoting human souls to fellowship with their Creator bot now and in the life after physical death in this world.
What has happened to the Notre Dame Cathedral is fit for it, one which is seen in the remnants of those not quite yet crumbled to dust across the globe.
Yet the true faith remains yet wholly viable and perfect, in spiritual temples of eternally saved souls, given life and continuously existing in the spiritual realm, and sustained by the Person, The Holy Spirit of God Himself forever. No fire can ever harm those spiritual temples, no not ever.
So go build something and stop griping.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.