On Sunday, Notre Dame de Paris will be re-opened, re-ordered after the inferno that overcame her. As darkness fell over Paris on 15 April 2019, flames were seen in the sky above the roof of what might be called the most famous building and cathedral in France, devouring a masterpiece of sanity and beauty.
Alongside the River Seine groups of people gathered in shock and fell to their knees, gradually joining in singing the French Ave Maria, “<em>Je vous salue Marie, </em><em>Marie, comblée de grâce</em>.”
There was a sense of apocalyptic horror and devastation on the banks of the dark fast flowing river and once the emergency services has been called, there was nothing else to do but pray.
Their prayers were answered. The cathedral was saved from complete destruction, though deeply wounded and spoiled almost beyond repair.
Once the fire had been contained, there was fierce speculation about the cause. There were popular anxieties that this was another example of the arson that has been sweeping France annually, with over 1,000 churches a year being destroyed. Videos circulated purporting to show shadowy oriental figures on the roof picked up by security cameras.
Others blamed the clergy. The culprit may have been a “temporary” electrical system that had been installed, against all regulations, between 2007 and 2012, apparently at the request of the clergy, to operate bells located above the crossing vault in the spire. The company that installed the scaffolding for the restoration was not informed about this unauthorised system and might have damaged it inadvertently. What is certain is that these bells were “rung” electrically on the evening of the fire, and that 12 minutes later the fire alarm sounded.
Clergy or immigrants, the question of the primary cause haunted many. Was this also a sign of judgement on the whole of the Western Church? Notre Dame is one of the most famous churches in the world, let alone France. With 13 million visitors a year, her silhouette has dominated the Paris skyline since 1200.
If it was a sign of judgment, then for what? Traditional Catholic voices have long accused the Church of surrendering to the rationalism of modernity, betraying the spiritual and supernatural inheritance, theological and ethical, that infused Catholicism from Pentecost onwards. Others have claimed that the sex abuse scandals, especially those wounding children, have cried to heaven for a sign of judgement and retribution. What could be more appropriate than the apocalyptic fire at the heart of France, the Church’s eldest daughter?
But fire can be purgative as well as an act of judgement. Did this fire have the dual purpose of warning a Church on the cusp of apostasy to fall down on its knees, to pray, turn direction, and rebuild itself in order to recapture the Europe it had won and lost?
This was not the first time that Notre Dame was at the centre of symbolic hiatus. The last time the cathedral suffered major damage was during the French Revolution. During the anti-Christian fanaticism of the revolution, Notre Dame was turned into a <em>“Temple of Reason”</em> and dedicated to the atheistic <em>“cult of reason”.</em> Later when the <em>“committee of public safety”</em> was waging the Reign of Terror, Maximilien Robespierre decreed a worship of a supreme being. The Notre Dame cathedral was re-dedicated to the <em>“Cult of Supreme Being”</em> with a notorious woman, perhaps a whore, being enthroned as the <em>“goddess of reason”</em> at the high altar.
If that symbolism wasn’t insulting enough, revolutionaries later converted the cathedral into a storage warehouse after beheading 28 statues of Biblical kings located on the West Wall.
Following the fire and the promise of the French government, alongside private patrons, to fund the restoration, the question of how the restoration should take place both captivated and divided commentators.
As with almost every major church renovation, there were two views. One that it should be restored to its pristine former glory; the other, that one could never go back, and there should be some integration between the past the present and the future.
But this was not just a struggle between the traditionalist and the modernists. It was also a response to a diagnosis of what the fire represented and what state the Church was in; particularly in regard to whether its duty lay in collaborating with progressive culture or repudiating and converting it.
This is also an argument then about the notion of progress and eschatology.
The secularists do not understand, and are not concerned for eschatology, and the traditionalists or conservatives repudiate secular utopianism either of a political or of an aesthetic kind.
From the moment when the French atheist president suggested a wholly different spire from the medieval one that define the Paris skyscape, battle was joined.
Astonishingly perhaps, the <em>restitutio in pristinum</em> voices largely won. Very few modifications were made to the structure, decoration or symbolism within the building.
But there were a few exceptions. Although these are matters of taste, the final outcome might have been dreadful if more had been lost to the advocates of brutalistic modernity. Whilst the high altar was left alone, the replacement nave altar looks like something out of an airport lounge. The chalices are constructed with sci-fi contouring, as is the presidents’ chair. The font has been likened to a 21st century advertisement for onion soup and the reliquary for the crown of thorns would be a tribute to Disneyland but not a fit setting for one of the most holy relics in Christendom. The chasubles designed for the opening Mass have been described as pleasing to Fr James Martin and a certain style of progressive Anglican, but deeply un-Catholic.
Since the style of Gothic is so effective at allowing so much light into the interior of a complex building, the cleansing of the carbon from the walls not only of the smoke but also of a millennium of candle carbon has produced a striking impression of architectural radiance. The building looks new and authentically ancient at one and the same time.
The rebuilding of Notre Dame after the fire, however one understands the event, presents both Church and society with a choice: collaboration and capitulation to the <em>zeitgeist</em>, or challenge, conversion and transformation of the <em>zeitgeist</em>?
As secular culture deepens in decadence and antipathy to Christian ethics and faith, the force of the arguments for a recapitulation of Catholic integrity, combining culture, spirituality, liturgy and philosophy grow ever more convincing and urgent.
<em>(The baptistery designed by French artist and designer Guillaume Bardet for Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral in Paris. Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)</em>
