Philippe Villeneuve, the chief architect charged with rebuilding Notre Dame Cathedral, said in an interview that his devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary inspired him to reconstruct her cathedral exactly as it had been. “Yes, I have a particular devotion to the Virgin Mary, and at the risk of sounding totally crazy, I like Joan of Arc,” he added.
The great English writer Gilbert Keith (GK) Chesterton once said:
“The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.”
After rewatching past footage of gigantic flames emerging and threatening to swallow the magnificent Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral in 2019, I could not help but recall Chesterton’s aforementioned quote.
Notably, author Joshua Charles penned his thoughts regarding the fire on April 16, 2019, titling his article “The Day We All Knew”.
Charles wrote:
“Today—April 15, 2019—will go down in history as the Day We All Knew—knew that whatever we were, whatever it was that gave our civilization its life, its ingenuity, its glory, is gone. This was the day when large portions of Notre Dame de Paris, the cathedral of Paris for nearly a thousand years, burned to the ground. It had survived the convulsions of the Black Death, religious furies, Revolution, and two world wars. But it was in our day that it crumbled. This stunningly gorgeous, beautiful, and transcendent building has suffered catastrophic damage. Everyone felt the ominous significance of the event. Religious or non-religious, there was a ubiquitous terror that this fire represented something deeper—something far more profound than just a building being destroyed. It was as if the bells of Notre Dame were tolling their last for the civilization that cast them. We knew we were in some mysterious sense watching the climax of a multi-century suicide. Despite all our vaunted ‘freedom’, all our cherished ‘rights’, all our technological ‘liberation’, our souls have become empty. We have gained the world, but lost the only thing that truly matters. Today represents something—we all feel it. It stares us in the face with what we’ve abandoned, with who we were, with who we still could be but for our refusal. So many of us are mourning, because a gorgeous monument that represents Her that formed our civilization in Her womb, has been incinerated.”
Adding, Charles aptly stated the indispensable role of the Roman Catholic Church in shaping Europe’s heritage and culture:
“The West would not be what it is but for the Catholic Church. No Church—no West. Indeed, the very idea of Europe itself did not proceed from the sword of the Roman Empire, but from the heart of Holy Mother Church, whose missionaries, often sent by the Successors of St. Peter in Rome, brought the Faith of the crucified Galilean to every one of its corners. “Europe,” and all that has proceeded from it, exists only because of the Catholic Church.”
“In an age of chaos, disease, war, and brutality, She made possible the advancement of the meritorious, no matter their background (indeed, the Bishop who began the building of Notre Dame began life as a serf!). She offered a ray of hope for millions of souls. She raised the dignity of women to previously unfathomable heights. Indeed, ‘Notre Dame’ means ‘Our Lady’, a reference to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who the Church continues to honor and venerate as the ‘New Eve’ of the new creation—a creation inaugurated by Her Son, Jesus Christ, the ‘New Adam’.”
Pointing out the oikophobia the nihilistic West is experiencing, with regard to its scorn for the glorious heritage of Catholic Europe, Charles elaborated:
“The Church mothered our civilization—imperfectly, but undeniably. But for the Catholic Church, the West would not be what it is. But it is this heritage the West has been running away from for centuries. The process is nearly complete. The Church remains, but Christianity has been shattered into shards of self-made religious ideologies. The secular world thinks too well of itself to admit its need for the Church that taught it the philosophical and theological bases of its most cherished assumptions. We in the West have grown to despise not just religion, and not just organized religion, but the Catholic religion most of all, for the Catholic faith, at its best, makes strident demands of us. When once we learn Her lessons, we know the hour of decision has arrived—either we perish on a cross, and live; or we live as we wish, and die. More than any other institution in the history of the world, the Catholic Church calls all men to deny that very thing the modern West believes is at the root of all it calls ‘happiness’: the self. And yet, when one of Her—and formerly our—greatest monuments goes up in flames, we cannot help but mourn.”
Charles is spot-on.
While Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York and Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rai of Antioch, together with other bishops from France and around the globe, were present at Notre Dame’s reopening ceremony, Pope Francis declined Macron’s invitation to grace the ceremony as leader of the Catholic Church.
How many of France’s Catholics are Catholics in name only?
How many of France’s chapels and churches (and by extension, Europe’s churches) have been left to decay at the whims of the elements?
Worse still (arguably), how many of such abandoned churches have been earmarked by the authorities to be turned into mosques?
Based on figures by the Pew Research Center, most European Christians (who are primarily Catholic) do not regularly attend church. Although 44% of Catholics in Central and Eastern Europe attend church monthly, only 33% of those in Western Europe do. Notably, 36% of Catholics in Central and Eastern Europe say they pray daily, while a mere 13% of those in Western Europe do so.
Fast forward to five years later, when, during a ceremony over the weekend of //truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113586046394556777“>December 7-8 this year, Notre Dame reopened its doors again, in spite of numerous obstacles, including those from the leftist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo.
Around 1,500 people, including about 40 heads of state, such as US President-elect //truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113586046394556777“>Donald Trump, the Prince of Wales, and Ukrainian authoritarian leader Volodymyr Zelensky attended the ceremony, as per numerous media reports.
Furthermore, while Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York and Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rai of Antioch, together with other bishops from France and around the globe, were present at Notre Dame’s reopening ceremony, Pope Francis declined Macron’s invitation to grace the ceremony as leader of the Catholic Church.
During his return flight from Singapore to Rome on September 13 this year, Pope Francis declared:
“I will not go to Paris, I will not go to Paris.”
The pontiff’s decision not to attend, clearly disappointed some members of the French episcopate, as the reopening ceremony was an event of huge religious, cultural, and political significance, both in France and beyond.
Also noticeably absent at the reopening ceremony was Spain’s King Felipe and the Spanish royal family. Speculation has since been rife that the present anti-Catholic government of Pedro Sánchez prevented the Spanish royals from gracing the occasion.
Despite initial indications that the Notre Dame cathedral would be redesigned in a modernist manner, the completed structure adhered largely to the original, to the relief of many. Strikingly, Philippe Villeneuve, the chief architect charged with rebuilding Notre Dame Cathedral, told Colm Flynn of the Eternal Word Television Network’s (EWTN), how his devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary inspired him to reconstruct her cathedral.
“I spent five years saying nothing about this because I’m a civilian, serving in a secular republic and therefore I couldn’t say something like this,” he proclaimed.
“But now I have to reveal that, yes, I have a particular devotion to the Virgin Mary and at the risk of sounding totally crazy, I like Joan of Arc,” he added.
However, the cathedral did not escape entirely unscathed from modernist influences. For instance, Macron voiced his support for the removal of the grisaille stained glass windows dating from the 19th century by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. Strikingly, the archbishop of Paris, Msgr. Ulrich, echoed Macron’s sentiments in favor of more contemporary windows.
Additionally, vestments worn by the clergy formed the subject of critique, especially from more conservative Catholics. French priest Fr. Clément Barré had this to say on X (translated into English by Hélène de Lauzun of The European Conservative):
“Basically, the problem with this garment, beyond any aesthetic appreciation, is that it escapes the common language of the Catholic liturgy. For a Christian, it does not say what is being celebrated. Instead, it summons up another language, with other references, other meanings… that of the artist, who in effect silences the Church to speak for him. And we are summoned to enter into this new language, which does not belong to us.”
Meanwhile, the embattled Macron, who is currently facing the thankless task of electing a new prime minister after Michel Barnier submitted his resignation recently, apparently tried to revive his faltering political fortunes, hailing the rebirth of Notre Dame as a sign of “hope for the world”.
The Archdiocese of Paris’ response to the First Lady’s sacrilegious reception of Holy Communion? Crickets (thus far).
To his credit, nonetheless, the anti-life Macron (whose name will notoriously go down in the annals of French history as the leader who presided over the enshrinement of abortion in the French Constitution) refrained from receiving Holy Communion during the Holy Mass at the cathedral, while his “wife”, divorcee Brigitte Macron, blatantly communicated, going against traditional Catholic teaching prohibiting divorced and “remarried” persons from receiving the Holy Eucharist until they have gone for the Sacrament of Confession with a firm purpose of amendment.
The Archdiocese of Paris’ response to the First Lady’s sacrilegious reception of Holy Communion?
Crickets (thus far).
What a sad (yet unsurprising) response from a church that seems to have lost its way in the secular world. As de Lauzun put it:
“As a Frenchwoman, as a Catholic, I should be rejoicing, but my heart isn’t really in it. The restored Notre Dame is whiter than it has ever been. But with the soot that has been stripped from the stones, the repentance of men and the prayers accumulated within these walls over the centuries have been washed away to create a smooth, uneven face at the image of a hygienic modern world too proud of itself. A little of the soul of Notre Dame has gone.”
In another part of her commentary, de Lauzun added:
“The party is ruined. I would have liked to be there, but the Notre Dame of December 7th is not quite mine. Fortunately, what remains is the inexorable power of those who conceived it, built it and supported it with their prayers. Its immense beauty continues to shine through beneath the garments of gaudy modernity with which it has been dressed. This Notre Dame is still standing, against all odds. I’m going to pay homage to her when the official din has died down. God save France!”
Indeed, just as de Lauzun stated, may the many prayers of faithful Catholics enable Catholic France to rise again, and to be treasured by all, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Notre Dame de Paris, Notre Dame du Monde.
