PHILADELPHIA — Here is an April 16 column
on the Notre Dame Cathedral fire from CatholicPhilly.com, the news website of
the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. It was written by M. Jean Duchesne, a French
Catholic guest columnist, and appears in place of Archbishop Charles J.
Chaput's regular column.
Duchesne co-founded the French edition of
the Communio international theological journal and served as special assistant
to the late Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger of Paris for more than 25 years.
The author of numerous books and articles
on the faith, active in Jewish-Catholic dialogues and a consultant to Cardinal
Lustiger's successors, "he has been a friend to the church in the United
States for decades," writes Archbishop Chaput. "He and his family
live in Paris. I'm grateful for his willingness to offer his thoughts here on
the Paris Holy Week fire."
Duchesne's column follows:
Seeing Notre Dame de Paris burning and threatening to collapse is
a shock that leaves everyone voiceless — including President Emmanuel Macron,
who canceled a speech dealing with the social unrest in France over the past
few months.
The cathedral towering above the island on the Seine that was the
cradle of the city is more than a venerable medieval building, more than an
exceptionally beautiful architectural masterpiece. It has been for centuries
the heart not only of Paris, but of the whole nation, the place where even
atheistic presidents and ministers came to pray because they could not think of
anything else to do when France was victorious (in 1918), defeated (in 1940) or
liberated (in 1944).
It was desecrated during the French Revolution and turned into a
temple of the goddess Reason, but Napoleon realized he had to give it back to
the church and be crowned there if he was actually to become an emperor.
It also is a vibrant reminder of the faith of our ancestors,
which shaped the monument and inspired every detail as a facet of God's
revelation and gifts as well as the overall design. It was meant and has
survived as a representation of the celestial abode that everyone openly hopes
for or secretly dreams of.
That something so ancient should defy time and remain so
mysteriously meaningful is perceived as a miracle that no science can either
deny or explain. This is why even nonbelievers feel affected. The Paris
cathedral is the symbol not just of the Catholic faith, but of the fact that
all humans have souls.
Rather strangely, non-Catholics lament more noisily than
Catholics. They fear the damage is irreversible. Can it be repaired? How much
will it cost? Can it be afforded? A fund has already been started to raise the
money that is needed. But will this be enough to restore everything as it was?
Is it possible to rebuild the roof's oak framework that had resisted the
elements since the 13th century? Will Notre Dame ever be the same again?
The faithful are less pessimistic, though they quite reasonably
could be. The late Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger had centered the Paris
Archdiocese's life in and around the cathedral and refashioned the interior
with an elegant modern altar in the middle. The loss of all this might seem to
be the last blow after all the sex abuse scandals that have hit the church
recently, and all the sociological studies highlighting the plummeting numbers
of baptisms, ordinations and religious vocations, or revealing that the younger
generations are simply unsure what Christians commemorate at Easter or what a
parish is exactly.
On top of it all, this happens just at the beginning of Holy
Week, the most sacred time of year for Christians: Where will the archbishop
gather his priests for chrism Mass? And finally, why did God allow this?
Notre Dame on fire and perhaps unusable for months if not years
is undoubtedly a trial. But faith does not allow to see this as a punishment or
the confirmation of a decline and fall. There is some comfort to be found in
the massive sense of affliction and solidarity of non-believers, since it
proves that for them, however irreligious they are, the visible church is not a
mere remnant of the past, but a vital part of the scenery, without which they
themselves miss something. Yet, in the end, this support does not make that
much of a difference.
What is decisive is the knowledge that Jesus Christ the groom
will never abandon his bride the church — which does not mean that her
faithfulness will never be tested. The Temple on Mount Zion was destroyed,
rebuilt and destroyed again. St. Peter's in Rome was plundered several times.
The crusaders lost Jerusalem. What ultimately matters is not the signifier (the
cathedral), but the signified (God's glory) which remains forever fertile and
will forever inspire those who long for it.
Editor's Note: Archbishop Chaput has asked the faithful
of the Philadelphia Archdiocese to pray for the Catholic community in France
and announced many parishes will have a second collection on Easter Sunday to
help repair and rebuild Notre Dame Cathedral. He asked Catholics to be "as
generous as your means allow, "nothing that the cathedral is "a
symbol of faith that belongs to Catholics around the world."
© Arlington Catholic Herald 2021