And hence its much more important.
I keep seeing references to Notre Dame de Paris as a "landmark" or a "national treasure", or all sorts of other similar terms. All of which are in fact true.
And all of which miss the point. Notre Dame de Paris is a Catholic Cathedral, and that's not only what it is, its why it is, and why its a national treasure and all of those other things. It's status as a Catholic Cathedral defines everything about it. Everything.
France is sometimes referred to as the "eldest daughter of the Church", referring to the very early conversion of the French people to Christianity. The claim is associated with a claim that France was the first wholly Christian nation, but that claim is pretty debatable. Actually, Armenia holds a better claim to that title. But France became a Christian nation very early.
And by Christian nation, we mean a Catholic nation. Irrespective of fanciful claims to the contrary that were fabricated during the Reformation, there's no doubt whatsoever that the early church was, "one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church". That's not a matter of religious faith, that's a matter of historic fact. Christians of other denominations can't honestly deny that, and if they're honest with themselves, they have to explain it in some historically cogent fashion, excluding such clearly false claims such as a different nature of the early church or some secret great apostasy. As the sage Daniel Patrick Moynihan noted, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts".
France is also a country that saw radical early anti clericalism and extreme secularization, which is party of its problematic historical legacy. That plays into the history of Notre Dame de Paris as well. Four churches have stood on the spot where the damaged Cathedral now stands prior to the commencement of its construction. In 1548 French Huguenots, a Protestant sect, destroyed some of its statutes, taking the extreme iconoclast position that pops up in Christianity, and indeed in other religions, from time to time. It was heavily rebuilt over the years to reflect changes in architectural style. An enormous statute of St. Christopher dating from 1413 was destroyed in 1786. A spire that had been added on earlier was removed in the 18th Century, and then a new one reinstalled in the 19th. During the French Revolution it was seized and defamed into a Cult of Reason, and the statutes of twenty eight Biblical kings beheaded on the mistaken ignorant belief that they represented French kings.
Indeed the unfortunate legacy of the unfortunate French Revolution, the model for modern revolutions in the fact that it it became wildly debased and turned into a massive, if still celebrated, failure, lingers on in that the Cathedral is property of the French state. After the French Revolution, France has had an uneasy relationship with everything, including itself, and as part of that, with its Faith. France became wildly anticlerical during the Revolution, but it remains Catholic still.
And it will continue to be. Unlike Ireland or Quebec, which really don't exist without the Church, there is a France that can be discussed without discussing the Church, but like everything European, or at least worth celebrating in Europe, it's not only difficult to do, but largely discussing something that's much diminished without the Church.
There's no doubt that Europe has been struggling with itself since some date in the 20th Century, or perhaps some date in the 19th, and part of that has been an increase in worldliness and misdirection, and a perceived decrease in Faith. That decrease, however, may in fact be a bit of an illusion, or misconstrued. It's very clearly the case that the churches born of the Reformation, generally eager to accommodate themselves to social trends of all types, are suffering much. Catholicism may seem to be, but it may be much less than imagined. When real events occur, the basic Catholic nature of Catholic peoples (and the Orthodox nature of Orthodox people's for that matter, strongly reasserts itself.
Which may be why the fire at Notre Dame is oddly portentous. France is a bellwether of some sort, descending into the depths, and the reviving. On the night the Cathedral was burning, people gathered to pray.
And that's quite telling.
