Notre Dame is heavily damaged but will survive
There are many many stories on the Notre Dame fire and the aftermath so far. For example:
Some will call it a miracle. According to Notre Dame’s heritage director, only one piece of architecture inside the sacred building has been damaged.
Laurent Prades told The Associated Press that the high altar, which was installed in 1989, was hit and harmed by the cathedral’s spire when it came crashing down in the flames. “We have been able to salvage all the rest,” said Prades, who witnessed the recovery first hand overnight.
“All the 18th-century steles, the pietas, frescoes, chapels and the big organ are fine,” he said. Among the most famous elements inside the cathedral, Prades added that the three large stained-glass rose windows have not been destroyed, though they may have been damaged by the heat and will be assessed by an expert.
That’s so much better than we were led to believe, which makes the reporting on the fire during the heat (literally) of the moment seem less than stellar (no surprise there). But truly, the fire did appear to be a much more destructive conflagration at the time.
Now the rebuilding will start:
Rebuilding the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris could take decades after it was gutted by a fire, experts warned Tuesday, even as its top priest expressed hope he could celebrate mass there within years…
France has experience of reconstructing cathedrals, including one in Reims that was severely damaged by shelling during World War I and another in Nantes that was gutted by fire in 1972.
Asked how long the rebuild could last, Eric Fischer, head of the foundation in charge of restoring the 1,000-year-old Strasbourg cathedral, which recently underwent a three-year facelift, said: “I’d say decades.”
“The damage will be significant. But we are lucky in France to still have a network of excellent heritage restoration companies, whether small-time artisans or bigger groups,” he told AFP.
Fischer said the ability to rebuild the colossal cathedral in a manner that respects its original form and character would depend on the plans, diagrams and other materials available to the architects.
Money has been pledged, plenty of it.
And of course, although authorities have labeled the fire as accidental rather than terrorism, the actual terrorists have celebrated it as “retribution and punishment,” of course.
I think this is a good time to point you to this post of mine, entitled “Europe and the Sea of Faith.”
The altar is the central piece of the system. Once it is gone, the place can be re-sanctified by the true followers.
“All the 18th-century steles, the pietas, frescoes, chapels and the big organ are fine,” he said.
All of which are meaningless to the Divine.
The lovely York Minster in the north of England, one of the most splendid Gothic buildings in Europe, was heavily damaged by fire 35 years ago but has, over the years, been beautifully restored at a relatively modest cost.
@ymarsakar
“’All the 18th-century steles, the pietas, frescoes, chapels and the big organ are fine,” he said.
All of which are meaningless to the Divine.”
But not meaningless to those of us of the human lot. Look, I take your point, but there should be a place in God’s creation for us to express our devotion, our beliefs and aspirations in a myriad of ways – including through art and music.
But not meaningless to those of us of the human lot.
Look, I take your point, but there should be a place in God’s creation for us to express our devotion
You can start by ensuring children survive abortion and that pedo hunter priests go away.
Not asking much.
The idea that humanity needs a church, a building, a temple, or a religious authority to speak to the Divine was always the con and the mistake.
Your life and body itself is a temple of the Divine, and what you do reflects not only upon yourself but your Divine heritage, what little remains of it…
You can aspire whatever art or music you want. We merely frown upon those of you who made it into this incarnation intact and are now guarding and spawn camping the womb/portal of life that others are waiting in line to get through. Not asking much.
What the Divine have asked humanity to do, humanity has ignored. What rich religious leaders have asked, you have done more than enough. By placing your faith and belief in the sacrifice, this unintentionally promotes Obedience to human authority, corruption, and megalomania. The Kingdom of God is within yourself. It is not within somebody’s church.
@ymarsakar
“You can start by ensuring children survive abortion and that pedo hunter priests go away…. We merely frown upon those of you who made it into this incarnation intact and are now guarding and spawn camping the womb/portal of life that others are waiting in line to get through. Not asking much.”
I think you’re more than a tad out of line here. Hysterical much?
I think you’re more than a tad out of line here. Hysterical much?
Yet again you ignore the wisdom of the Divine. The arm of mercy is endlessly extended to humanity, yet time and time again it is rejected.
Did I hit a sore emotional spot much? I think you’re more than a tad out of line here. I am quite aware of what you were thinking and feeling, human.
Twitter user @SarahSahim, a writer for Rolling Stone magazine, Teen Vogue and the Independent newspaper wrote, “Notre-Dame burning is cosmic karma for all the historical sites and artefacts France destroyed and stole when being colonialist scum.”
Another Twitter user, @gaygadott called the fire, “the most aesthetically pleasing visually (sic) I’ve ever seen,” while the account for a U.S.-based far-left pro-Palestinian publication called the Jewish Worker said, “Genuinely awful but if you mourn for this one building and not, say, the entirety of Syria, your white supremacy is showing.”
YArmarskar The idea that humanity needs a church, a building, a temple, or a religious authority to speak to the Divine was always the con and the mistake.
look, i really dislike atheists pounding stuff that only to other athiests make sense… got that? to people who actually study religion, and more, you come accross like a very very ignorant moron…
why? because the stuff you say are the things that people with hate in their hearts say without any understanding… they get angry, they find excuses..
and YARM your one nasty hateful dude who has piss and vinegar in their veins and lack lots of compassion, and too impatient to even try to understand…
i will assume that your moronic motions are about judeo christian. because it has little to do with pagan (who the sky is their church), animists (who believe everything is alive), and many others… you also forget that baptists baptize in rivers and lakes like john the baptist, and so on.
there is NO idea that humanity needs a church
Hows that for not even wrong?
there is no such requirements, no such thing…
What there is is LOVE, and the desire to show it.
yarmarskar, your a human being, and if i do to you what you do to priests, then you are even worse thatn they are, because the lot of priests in the world have done less horrible things than the lot of normal people who have never been priests!!!!
given your logic, you would be first i line and the preists come after you!!
oh, you dont like being smeared with the reputation of other losers? think priests do?
then again, you conveniently 100% of the time, ignore things that would potentially modify your position, because you LOVE your hateful position too much. like the fact that Bella Dodd TESTIFIED to placing perverse and communist operatives in the catholic church… now, if the communists in america foment gay, homoselxual unions, and so on, why wouldnt the people who freaking SHOT THE POPE do this?
dont like that they have last names a lot like yours? tough?
but man does NOT build churches for god..
gods universe is his cathedral
man builds churches for man to say there is a special place
to put aside a place in respect, and usage, which is value
[especially to farm communities]
we do it to show our ‘talents’ and express to god our selves
and then there is the idea of good works
and more.
i think of your statement and imagine mankind destroying all the colleges and universities, as they are no more needed than a church… just crack the books dummy.
The book of Hebrews says that we don’t need a middle man.
but have you read the bible? i have..
have you read the torah and other books? i have..
have you read the vedas? i have
have you been a gardnerian priest? i have
have you learned from shamans in sweat lodges? i have
and that was all just for living… and learning..
The priest, rabbi, minister or pastor is not magic in judeo/christianity.
and what does jesus say?
Jesus says where two or three are gathered He is present.
The Apostle Paul tells us we are the Temple.
and you know something… all your bitching about is how ignorant people get taken cause they are ignorant…
Your anger is because you want there to be this, and to you there isnt. you want the blessings and so on, but to you, they dont exist… you want the happiness, but cant have it… otherwise, you wouldnt care either way
your comment is akin to those people who were cheated…
but, does a person going into something to ahve it proved to them, really a person who is a part of somethign? or a person who is not a part, and needs convincing?
well, there is no convincing…
if i falsley convince you to pretend to lvoe god
your not going anywhere with that
so its futile that way…
this doesnt mean that con men and women dont exist
remember, this is EARTH, the land of evil, and death, and so on
your expectations are not real
you want heaven on earth, and dont want to die for it
you want to KNOW, as you ahve no faith, even in yourself
[if you say you do, then you dont know the meaning of faith]
why not read some Christian apologists and learn something?
why? because the stuff you say are the things that people with hate in their hearts say without any understanding… they get angry, they find excuses..
You might be convincing if it wasn’t for the fact I remember that almost every time you began to lose a debate against me and others here, you pulled your “I am disabled, crippled, with autism” card.
Come on. Do better.
Half of your bold “quotes” arent even from me. Thanks for arguing against yourself, for yourself, while pretending to talk to me. I really appreciate that, kid.
Artfl’s tip is just the beginning. I’ll bet that within a week, the outcry from the left that rebuilding Notre Dame is a sign of white supremacy will be widespread. How about a pool on how long before AOC, Omar, and Tlaib join in? The head of a French preservation group said France no longer has trees large enough to replace the beams. Trump should tell Macron we will send them the wood. That ought to make the lefty heads explode!
but have you read the bible? i have..
have you read the torah and other books? i have..
have you read the vedas? i have
have you been a gardnerian priest? i have
have you learned from shamans in sweat lodges? i have
Have you read books on surgery and the Art of War?
You have (maybe).
Does that mean you understand any of it and are ready to start cutting?
Lol, no way Art. Come on, do better.
yarmarskar, your a human being, and if i do to you what you do to priests, then you are even worse thatn they are, because the lot of priests in the world have done less horrible things than the lot of normal people who have never been priests!!!!
I did something to priests? Since when, remind me, boy. So normal people are worse, thus have you done anything about that?
Come on, Art, you need to use that autism card better.
actually she isnt..
she is saying and the devine is saying
you know this to be?
then why are YOU preaching to others to do YOUR work?
you go out and fix that…
who the f are you to admonish her? your not God?
but you sure do try to tell us about him and you cant even get your points valid
what your doing is false preaching.. which tends to make god angry at you and take things awy from you!!!
GOD HAS YOUR NUMBER AND WROTE ABOUT YOU ALREADY
Ezekiel 13:9
My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and utter lying divinations. They will not belong to the council of my people or be listed in the records of Israel, nor will they enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Sovereign LORD.
Jeremiah 23:16
This is what the LORD Almighty says: “Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD.
2 Timothy 4:3-4
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
Acts 20:28-30
28 Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.
29 I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. 30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.
AND LAST..
1 John 4:1-6
obviously, yarmarskar is not from god, and he is preaching what gospel?
“Fischer said the ability to rebuild the colossal cathedral in a manner that respects its original form and character would depend on the plans, diagrams and other materials available to the architects.”
I heard this morning that there is some computer game (of all things) that uses the interior of the Notre Dame cathedral as one of its locales, and that the creators claim that it is a hyper accurate rendering of it. The 3D model was two years in the making. I wonder if they used one of those scanning laser ranging devices.
I think these words by two different popes captures why the Notre-Dame Cathedral appeals to the secular as well as the religious:
Yes to the idea that the US could send the trees! A HUGE white oak went over in a storm in our neighborhood a couple of days ago. We could send timber for the reconstruction from North Carolina.
” I am quite aware of what you were thinking and feeling, human.”
“Not something you want to be playing around with when conversing with those at my level.”
“Not even your amnesia will allow you to forget what you are dealing with.”
“I await your Answer, mortal. I hope you have not forgotten how to conduct a conversation, human. ”
I assume from these quotes that we have been graced with the presence of a deity…Zeus? Odin? Quetzalcoatl? Please reveal yourself to us insects!
There can be no doubt that what transpired was a modern-day miracle.
One’s mileage may vary, certainly.
(What’s French for “Gotta believe!)
And a tremendous, almost superhuman, effort by the firefighters, who must have been exhausted by this extremely complex and dangerous conflagration.
There are indeed laser scans of Notre Dame taken in 2010 by Andrew Tallon, who died of brain cancer last November.
“The Images That Could Help Rebuild Notre-Dame Cathedral”
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/04/laser-scans-could-help-rebuild-notre-dame-cathedral/587230/
However, the article is rather maddening insofar as it’s not clear where this precious data lives. It’s only a terabyte, but they don’t know where it is.
__________________________________________________________
But as the cathedral officials and architectural authorities in France and around the world begin to consider what to do, they will come looking for the laser-data files that Tallon created. Blaer estimated that, despite the high resolution of the scans and panoramic photographs, the files would be roughly a terabyte, small enough to fit on a single hard drive, but unlikely to be stored in the cloud. All those data now exist on a single disk, a tiny portal into the past, which is sitting somewhere on Earth. Blaer thought it might be in the hands of Tallon’s students at Vassar. But Ochsendorf thought the data were most likely with the rest of Tallon’s archive, in the possession of his widow, Marie, who held Andrew in her arms as he died.
“And a tremendous, almost superhuman, effort by the firefighters, who must have been exhausted by this extremely complex and dangerous conflagration.” [Barry Meislin @ 5:59 pm]
An important point. In the pre-industrial age fires were fought by bucket brigades which means with a conflagration of this magnitude one just stands out of the way and watches. Keep this in mind as the eco-Luddites agitate to return civilization to a pre-industrial economy.
I notice the “Atlantic” grammar checkers insist on “data” as a plural noun.
This is one of the rare cases where I’ll go with the “Guardian” (or the “Grauniad” which is their joke nickname because they publish so many typos).
Data takes a singular verb (like agenda), though strictly a plural; no one ever uses “agendum” or “datum”
https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-d
I love wood, worked with many forms of wood for decades, even a bit of timberframing along the way — but it seems to me better alternatives are available for rebuilding this great cathedral, or at least I hope minds are open to the possibilities.
I agree that they could rebuild better with steel or concrete. The question is, will they want to? This gets to the question of whether you are reconstructing the building as it was, down to the last detail, or are you reconstructing just the look and feel of the building. Some historic preservation building codes require as near exact reconstruction as is possible with modern methods and materials, others permit just the façade to be identical in appearance with everything internal being modern, and many codes are somewhere in between. What French preservation rules require, I don’t know, or what aesthetic the French will want, is way above my pay grade.
That’s an interesting question. Would steel trusses, which would not be visible, be an acceptable replacement for the oak forest of the original roof trusses?
So Kate, I have no complete answer, though I believe a combination of architects, structural engineers, economists, lawyers, insurance men, etc., can come to a reasonable approximation to a complete answer. Can the new structure burn, for instance? Can it cost more money than necessary, or than we have on hand? Must the new thing take forever to build or can we aim at something approaching quickness in fabrication and placement? Can we achieve equal or better strength with another material? Will it last 1,000 years? And so on.
I only hope the proper questions are asked prior to plunging in.
For those discussing the future reconstruction keep in mind that the roof framing is never seen by the public as part of the aesthetic presentation of the cathedral. In 1973 I was in York while major work was going on at York Minster. The had supported the exterior walls with huge steel braces and dug around the foundation pouring a large concrete sleeve to stabilize the building. All of this concrete was designed to be buried and unseen so that it did not at all affect the apprecation and character of the medieval work. Likewise regardless of the method chosen to reconstruct the roof, the framing will only ever been seen by a very small number of professional people. The exterior of the roof OTH will be constantly visible.
I had a terrible thought that Muslims would have to be included on the committee in charge of rebuilding. Then I thought, no, the cathedral must be owned by the Catholic Church. And I was wrong:
Who owns Notre Dame cathedral?
The cathedral is currently owned by the French state, but a 1905 law helped establish that the state would be neutral when it comes to religion and the public would have freedom to carry out their beliefs. This meant that the Catholic Church became the designated beneficiary and were able to use the cathedral exclusively to practise the religion.
–https://metro.co.uk/2019/04/16/inside-notre-dames-history-built-owns-famous-9219911/
So maybe it’s not likely, but if the State owns the cathedral they can undesignate the Catholic Church. In which case it’s time to go multi-culti and bring in some Muslims for the rebuilding.
Wow.
Yammersacker and the Dodger in a war of words…
Where’s that “skip to end” button.
Speaking of the great Christian cathedrals that have been lost to accident, nature, or vandalism, I think of the Hagia Sophia.
–Yeats, “Sailing to Byzantium”
–from an extremely interesting piece on the Hagiah Sophia, at
https://www.pallasweb.com/deesis/hagiasophia.html
Many photos of historic Eastern Christian icons, as well as photos of the Cathedral, at least one of which is what the photo-artist hopes is a reasonable photographic reconstruction of the Dome. He writes,
There is a great deal of history here, and there are many images. IMO a real treat, both intellectual and aesthetic.
At the bottom, a paragraph states,
And below that, at the very bottom there are several Icon Galleries to view.
The icon “Christ Pantocrator” is among those shown, but in Mr. Atchison’s gallery photo it looks to me to be painted; whereas Wikipedia’s version looks as if it’s some type of mosaic-work.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Christ_Pantocrator_mosaic_from_Hagia_Sophia_2744_x_2900_pixels_3.1_MB.jpg
Huxley,
Apropos your remark, albeit in terms of a somewhat more reasonable and generous minded ecumenism
Check out this BBC clip on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1N2o1RjFJs
The president of the French Protestant Association speaks of a “big job in front of us” at 7:32.
But my reason for visiting at this moment was to point out some interesting architectural details at 3:58.
There you can get what must be a very rare view, if not a virtually first time in modern history view, of the upper side of the stone vaulting that constituted the ceilings of the nave and the transepts.
Whether there was an attic floor under all that truss work above the vaults or maybe just catwalks, I don’t know.
This stone vault work, is obviously what saved much of the interior of the Church from the burning gable roof trusses.
I can now see better why I thought the transepts were gutted and only the facades remained. That was apparently the case for the “attic” portion of the transepts, including their own upper level windows and traceries. But it may be that the public areas below suffered “only” damage comparable to the main portions of the nave.
The architecture of these buildings is a fascinating subject in itself; like dreadnoughts and heavy bombers.
There is just something mesmerizing about the subjects.
Julie near Chicago: This is the Christ Pantocrator that gets me. Those eyes! I bought a reproduction mounted on a slab of wood from an Eastern Orthodox store.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_Pantocrator_(Sinai)
A good reminder that Christ is not the Hallmark version of St. Francis.
I advise that Ymarsakar, who is often looney, be limited to one 500 word comment, and one 300 word rebuttal per Neo topic. One might apply the same limit, rather than edit for content and length, to Artfldgr simply to check his logorrhea..
Neo’s is not a group therapy session for the mentally disordered, though the Left would have it so..
huxley,
Yes, the eyes are very expressive, aren’t they. No, not a Hallmark card at all. Thanks very much for the link.
.
DNW,
Thanks for your link also. Interesting indeed. And I can well imagine that the architecture of some of the cathedrals can be mesmerizing. Sigh … I don’t see why the Great Frog couldn’t have given us about 600 times longer to live. Putting such a smorgasbörd of wonders before us, and then not allowing us time to investigate and enjoy them properly, strikes me as pretty mean treatment. *scowl* :>))
“…steel trusses…”
I heard (second hand) that had steel trusses been used (to replace the wood—in the previous renovation—in the 19th C., I believe), it is entirely possible that the extreme heat generated by the fire would have expanded the trusses to the point where they would have burst the walls of the cathedral causing the structure to collapse (at least in some places).
Don’t know if this is an accurate assessment, though.
Ken Follet wrote some great books about the building of a Cathedral in early 12th century England, The Pillars of The Earth. (fictional Kingsbridge #1) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5043.The_Pillars_of_the_Earth
Great fiction with fairly historically accurate architecture details.
Fine old Neo post on Europe and the Sea of Faith. Reminds me of learning about what most liberal Christian beliefs have degenerated into:
MTD- Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. (Related to the excessive debate of Ymar & Art)
Much Muslim fervor is much stronger right now than most Christian fervor, tho Rod Dreher (The Benedict Option) is trying to help re-ignite Christianity. Recently he wrote about an MIT librarian who wants to get rid of old books written by white guys. To destroy collective memory of “who we are”.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/smokeless-cathedral-burn-libraries-humanities/
The PC-Klan are believers in MTD, and many seem to believe that disagreement with them is evil. This must be fought against.
Thanks, Ann, for great Pope thoughts about beauty. Our cultural degradation is clearly seen in the desire and celebration of originality over beauty. Most humans more often prefer the more beautiful, and want to be surrounded by a beautiful world. And while they don’t want to see the ugly parts, they also want the ugly parts to become more beautiful, too.
For those more technically inclined as to how these amazing buildings are actually built, a former student of mine, now finishing her PhD in civil engineering at Princeton co-authored an article which settled the question as to whether the flying buttresses were structural or ornamental. They are structural. Unfortunately the article is paywalled, but here’s the link:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15583058.2017.1317883
AP story: Macron says 5 yr. rebuild, knowledgeable commenters scoff, new spire design “contest” floated, more blah blah blah — https://www.apnews.com/232c126bee2e462aa8787ac956f92c3f
Physicsguy,
You are probably aware of Robert mark’s work but see my link from Neo’s previous post on Notre Dame re: Robert Mark:
https://www.thenewneo.com/2019/04/15/fire-in-notre-dame/#comment-2430822
https://www.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/styles/third_1x/public/images/2019/04/Image1.jpg?itok=t0oPrFpQ
If I remember correctly, Mark’s research began with an analysis of Chartres Cathedral and specifically the sentry-box looking tops of the flying buttresses. He was examining precisely whether they were aesthetic or structural. He did both static and wind-loaded analyses and later moved on to other cathedrals. The images were striking then and were written up in Scientific American at the time gaining some popular appeal as well.
Ann, great quotes. I was raised a Catholic, and lapsed in my late teens. At 22, I started attending again but then segued into an evangelical/pentecostal church for 12 years. While homeschooling our children, the study of ancient and western history brought me back to the Catholic faith, making our first trip to France in 1996 more of a pilgrimage than a vacation. At that time I wrote these 3 words in my Father Hardon catechism book (The Faith), “truth, beauty, mystery”. I consider that the essence of my religion (a word I do not revile). I consider having been raised Catholic as one of the great graces of my life.
This outstanding St. Catherine’s monastery image, which may have been based on an image taken from the, or a, shroud model, is the one usually left out when the politically and ideologically motivated “reviews” of ‘how Jesus actually looked” are trotted out for the Easter season.
There’s plenty of reason of course to shake one’s head at the late medieval and renaissance depictions of Christ. They are usually wan, passive, emaciated, scant bearded males with that thin yet flat faced, puffy eyed, Gothic look.
Then of course there is The Guardian’s favorite: the bewildered moron they present as a likely representation of Christ — based on sociological surmises, no less.
On the one hand, the sexually ambiguous boyfriend model of Albrecht Durer, and on the other, a puzzled looking, extra swarthy, bulbous nosed, Levantine idiot.
You think they might have noticed what you did. But if they did ….
T:
Yes, my student’s work built upon Mark’s earlier work. Basically, they showed that the cathedrals would be unstable without the buttresses. Arch. and art historians were arguing that the buttresses were ornamental. This work was done early in her grad career. She’s now ready to graduate with the specialty of digital reconstruction and analysis of historic structures. Has done work on cathedrals in Cuba, Croatia…. and had undergrads do work on a 19th century lighthouse in South Carolina.
Related thread:
https://twitter.com/FrAquinasOP/status/1117998779276439552
A question—that struck at the heart of things—about the burning of Notre Dame (which was built by two or three generations of immense effort and sacrifice in the 12th and 13th centuries) and the French people’s response to it, was asked by Mark Stein on Tucker Carlson’s program last night.
Stein’s question was, were the people crying on the streets in Paris crying primarily over the loss of a building that was, in essence, an exquisite art museum and testament to their past—a crowded tourist exhibit, or were they crying primarily over the destruction of a building that was perhaps the chief symbol of their living Christian faith?
Similarly, was Macron’s pledge to rebuild Notre Dame a civic pledge to rebuild what is basically an art museum, or was it an act of faith, a pledge to rebuild perhaps the chief symbol of the Christian faith of the people of France?
In one of my comments here yesterday I posted a link to a story reporting that, just in the last year alone, close to a thousand churches all over France had been vandalized/desecrated.
Several of them, including St. Denis, the oldest cathedral in France—reportedly situated in a Muslim “no-go” zone just outside Paris—vandalized in just the past week alone.
Moreover, a historian quoted in that article estimated that only 5% of Frenchmen were practicing Catholics.
I had initially thought that that 5% estimate was far too low, but, giving it some thought, perhaps that estimate is accurate.
According to police statistics—year after year—there have been these massive numbers of churches vandalized in France and, yet, there has apparently been no generalized mass reaction to these very large numbers of continuing desecrations by the people of France.
Why?
Perhaps it’s because, in post-Christian France, they don’t really care.
Perhaps because the great majority of Frenchmen no longer have any spiritual connection to the Christianity that these churches embodied and serves, and, thus, no connection to, or regard for the churches themselves.
They’re over “all that.”
I also noted, in one of my posts yesterday, the four major battles that Christian forces fought in Europe–over the course of almost a thousand years–which, each time, turned back attempts by Muslim armies to invade Europe.
In effect, the Muslim armies are here again, and this time—in an act of cultural, religious, and national suicide—are not being stopped, not being turned back but, instead, have been invited into most of Western Europe, and into France.
This time it is the Muslim armies which are prevailing.
Why?
As the saying goes, “you can’t fight something with nothing,” and without a very stout, vibrant, and widespread Christian faith—a faith they can, yet again, trust and believe in—there to place the threat from Islam in a historical, theological, and philosophical context–to guide, fortify, and to direct them, many of today’s Europeans and Frenchmen have nothing which will instruct them to be alert to, to identify, to help them understand, much less to repel, this new Islamic invasion.
DNW: I don’t understand those weird older depictions of Christ either. Of course I grew up on the standard idealized images — the big-shouldered Caucasian fellow with long flowing brown hair and gentle, twinkling eyes — I saw in my missal, which weren’t bad or at least weren’t distracting.
I followed the tug-of-war debate on the Shroud and never landed on either side. Don’t know if it ever got settled.
Roger Kimball asks a damn good question:
“Why Were Authorities so Quick to Rule out Arson in the Notre Dame Conflagration?”
https://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/why-were-authorities-so-quick-to-rule-out-arson-in-the-notre-dame-conflagration/
I had the same thought myself. Maybe the source of the fire was obvious enough to a professional, but I haven’t seen an explanation beyond “authorities say.”
It won’t come as news I have been deeply suspicious of radical Islam since 9/11. I remember how Muslim funny business showed up at Ground Zero and the Flight 93 Memorial.
Turns out after substantial controversy Muslims are building some sort of interfaith community center, thirteen stories high, blandly known as Park51, two blocks from Ground Zero. At least it’s not a mosque. The funding sources remain untransparent.
Then there was the horror of the initial design of the Filght 93 Memorial in the shape of a crescent and titled “The Crescent of Embrace”! Who is crazy or suicidal here? Well, there was enough uproar that the crescent was modified into a full circle. But still. I think they should have scrapped that design and design team entirely.
The Catholic League president is complaining about Fox News cutting him off when he mentioned church vandalism.
Donohue was referencing a disturbing incident the previous day, when the left-leaning Neil Cavuto hung up on Donohue because he said he was “suspicious” of the fire that destroyed the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris this week.
I have never thought of Cavuto as “left leaning” but wonder if that was an instruction from the leftist Murdoch boys.
Fox News’ resident leftist activist Shepard Smith did the same thing: He cut off a French politician after he brought up fact that numerous Catholic Churches in France have been desecrated in the past year.
Smith is no surprise.
I have been deeply suspicious of radical Islam since 9/11.
I have been suspicious since 1979. Read “Guests of the Ayatollah”
Physicsguy,
Just a small adjustment of terminology: the structural questions have not been about the buttresses themselves, but the large finials placed atop them. We’ve always known that the flying buttresses fly the stress and pressure generated by the vaulting to the exterior of the structure. The question has always been are the large finials on the buttresses structural or only decorative.
One aspect of Notre Dame’s importance is that it was one of the earliest works (if not THE first work) to stylistically design the flying buttresses as part of the aesthetic appearance of the structure. These are not the clunky heavy buttresses of Chartres, but an elegant and graceful web of support. almost lace-like, which enhances the external appearance of the structure.
As I ‘m sure you know, the Gothic cathedrals are the equivalent of steel-skeleton skyscrapers. As opposed to earlier churches with load-bearing walls, the Gothic cathedrals channel pressure and stress to the various piers and buttresses to allow the wall to become a screen-wall with no structural function. This allowed the wall to become filled with stained glass of monumental proportions which rendered the interior diaphanous. The intent was to highlight the fact that the interior, unlike the real world outside, was a special place.
Lesser known is that the cathedrals (and to an extent earlier churches) acted as real-world allegories to the faith. The stained glass windows, illustrating Old and New Testament events permitted light to pass through, yet transmitted that light through renderings of Biblical scenes. Light was considered the purest manifestation of the Godhead in the real world and this passage of light was seen as an allegory to the Word of God being transmitted to human beings through the Bible .
The success of this structural and allegorical message even today is evinced by the heartfealt reactions (both pro and con) which were highlighted in news reports. Even in today’s secular world these are not just buildings. The religious message might be less intense than in prior centuries, but the religiosity remains.
“The religious message might be less intense than in prior centuries, but the religiosity remains.” [T @ 12:39 pm]
Thanks to this instapundit post for making my point (bold face is mine):
He makes my point, but for the record, I find his mindset superficial and repulsive.
“Lesser known is that the cathedrals (and to an extent earlier churches) acted as real-world allegories to the faith.” T
I can’t find it as I loaned out my Cardinal Newman book, but one of the great points he makes is that the churches of Europe were libraries of the faith and represented the ascendancy of Christ over pagan lands and were the high places of every city. When you visit these churches, even in small towns, you usually do have to ascend steps to enter.
Rolling Stone weighs in with a few suggestions.
Harwood, too, believes that it would be a mistake to try to recreate the edifice as it once stood, as LeDuc did more than 150 years ago. Any rebuilding should be a reflection not of an old France, or the France that never was — a non-secular, white European France — but a reflection of the France of today, a France that is currently in the making. “The idea that you can recreate the building is naive. It is to repeat past errors, category errors of thought, and one has to imagine that if anything is done to the building it has to be an expression of what we want — the Catholics of France, the French people — want. What is an expression of who we are now? What does it represent, who is it for?,” he says.
Why a mosque, of course.
Earlier in the Rolling Stone article:
What it means to be “French,” however, has obviously changed a great deal over the past few centuries. While France is still predominantly Christian, the number of practicing Catholics has fallen year after year, from 64% in 2010 to 56% in 2012, according to one census figure. The number of Muslims in France is also growing, comprising more than 5% of the population (up from 3% in 2006) giving rise to rampant Islamophobia and the birth of far-right extremist parties like the National Front, headed by extremist Marine Le Pen.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/notre-dame-cathedral-paris-fire-whats-next-822743/
It appears my earlier concern about Muslims being involved in how Notre Dame will be rebuilt is not fanciful.
“. . . the churches of Europe . . . represented the ascendancy of Christ over pagan lands and were the high places of every city.” [Sharon W @1:06 pm]
Sharon W,
Makes one understand why Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was turned into a mosque; it was a religious-political statement perhaps even more so than simply re-using a house of worship.
In the Middle Ages, cities could be recognized from afar by the spires of their cathedral or church. In a religious age, the religious structures dominated the cities and towns. Today, our cities and towns are dominated by commercial structures.
“Moreover, a historian quoted in that article estimated that only 5% of Frenchmen were practicing Catholics.” Snow on Pine
When we visited our son (May 2016) who worked at the Embassy in Paris for 1-1/2 years, we attended Mass (daily) and visited every church we passed. On one Sunday we went inside St. Sulpice (a beautiful church that just recently suffered an arson fire–the subject of which was aborted by Fox “news personnel”). It was packed with families as many, many (I’m not good at estimating) children had just made their first holy communion. My son attended Mass weekly while there and a number of the Masses were well-attended. As early risers, a number of the Masses were lightly attended, especially by comparison to our local parish here in the San Fernando Valley. The thing about France is that the faith is cultural as well, in that mid-week “holy days” are national holidays where everything shuts down–like would formerly happen here in America on a Sunday. Those holy days are barely even recognized here, in fact, usually pushed to a Sunday.
It seems inconceivable that the Shroud of Turin is an intact relic of an historical era, much less what it is purported by some to be more substantively.
Nonetheless a great deal of interpretive ingenuity has been expended in attempting to narrow down the historical gap in time between which a supposed folded Byzantine relic presenting some of the same features disappeared, and the shroud which we know, appeared.
Then there is the Sudarium, which has a somewhat better historically attested record, but still major problems with the C14 dates.
I suppose a retesting of the Shroud with samples taken from indisputably original areas would be the most straightforward way of going about confirmation dating it at present .
In any event, it is clear that very early on, Christians, in the Eastern Empire at least, had access to images that were far more likely and perhaps historically rooted, than the images in the catacombs, the early Irish illuminated Gospels, or the German and Flemish weirdness of the late Medieval and early modern eras.
As a side note, though I had studied ancient and medieval history in school – though they were not my concentration – I had never heard of the Bordeaux Pilgrim, nor Egeria, nor even Arculf and De Locis Sanctis.
I would never have imagined that they were, or anything like them were preserved, nor the Notitia Dignitatum nor the Vergilius Vaticanus and Vergilius Romanus.
I never learned of them in school.
Yet, here they are.
As a great deal of the interior decoration, and the basic structure, survived, it is to be hoped that “re-making” Notre Dame into something other than the Church of Our Lady of Paris will not be on the agenda.
In the medieval world, when so many laypeople were illiterate, the light shining through those windows was the Bible to them, telling them the history of salvation.
As to the Christian faith being “white European,” Jesus and his earliest followers far more nearly resembled today’s Arabs than any German or French believers.
“In the medieval world, when so many laypeople were illiterate, the light shining through those windows was the Bible to them, telling them the history of salvation.”-Kate
On our first trip to France we spent 23 days and were in Paris, Montpellier and the Loire region (where we rented a gite for $400 for the week–unbelievably outstanding!) Our then 7 year old could not get the questions out fast enough at every religious site we visited. I can still picture where we were at the Abbaye de Fontevraud (served 700 people a day–run by an Abbess–so much for the feminist account of history) when every surface spoke to him. The questions were deep for a 7 year old. It brought home to me how these structures taught people in a day and age when literacy wasn’t the norm.
Kate — today’s Arabs are descendants of the natives of the Arabian Peninsula, with admixtures of the peoples they conquered: Palestinians, Egyptians, Libyans, etc. If you want an idea of what Jesus and his followers looked like, just go to a Mizrachi (North African, Iraqi, Syrian) synagogue in Israel. But you’d better hurry. Very much against their parents’ wishes, there’s an ever-increasing number of intermarriages between Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Misrachi Jews in Israel.
The admixture makes it hard to know what “pure” anything is. Copts in Egypt are reliably Egyptian, but Egyptians in general probably have a lot of Copt in them, mixed in with other groups. I should have said “Arab,” the people of the current area, rather than the Gulf Arabs, who are not, I agree, the same groups.
Yep. As Yogi Berra once said, “Nobody is who they used to be.”
On FOX, I have no use for obvious 24/7 Lefty Shep Smith, but I used to have some respect for Neil Cavuto.
The fire at Notre Dame occurred against the background of increasing Muslim terror attacks in Europe and in France, and police reports that, just last year alone, some 850 churches in France were vandalized/desecrated, that there had been vandalism against a dozen churches in France within the last couple of weeks, and that a fire was deliberately set last week in the oldest cathedral in France, that of St. Denis–located in the midst of one of the Muslim “no-go zones,” just outside of Paris.
“No-go zones,” I might add, that some in denial European and French authorities deny even exist.
But after their performances yesterday–in which both Shep and Cavuto shut down people who said that they were suspicious that the fire at Notre Dame had been deliberately set, and might have been terrorism–both of these FOX anchors have revealed themselves to be nothing more than agents of the Islamic Propaganda Department.
How is it that they are so protective of the rights and the image of Muslims and of Islam that they would instantly spring into action to censor such speculations which–it seems to me–are pretty logical and reasonable ones to have, given the background of escalating Muslim terror attacks, and the massive number of attacks against and desecrations of churches in France?
How is it their right to determine which pieces of information–even speculation–are correct or within bounds, and that we should be “allowed” to hear them, and that some ideas, some speculations, are categorically “wrong,” out of bounds, and that we should be prevented from hearing them?
Who are they protecting by doing what they did, Islam and Muslims, or the rest of us, who are the ones under actual and increasing physical attack?
Us so-called “unbelievers,” who need all the information we can get our hands on to try to figure out what is happening, and where we are under attack.
Are they presenting us with all of the information and, then, letting us make our own analysis of it?
Or, are they trying to present us a shaped “narrative,” one designed to lead us to their desired conclusion?
I think the latter.
P.S.–I note that Churches and Mosques, and their symbolism and locations have always been important in Islamic ideology, military, and political strategy, in which Mosques mark the boundaries of conquered territory.
I still want to know exactly what happened, who was up there, and what piece of equipment provided the spark which set off the fire.
Whether this fire was deliberately set or an accident will, I am afraid, go the way of “was Marilyn Monroe deliberately killed, and not a suicide,” “what happened to Jimmy Hoffa,” and “was TWA800 a terrorist attack, accidental destruction by an errant Navy missile, or was it an actual accident, due to some mechanical malfunction that took place inside the aircraft,” and the direct cause of this fire will never be determined, at least to everyone’s satisfaction.
It seems to me that some occurrences are just so politically charged, their effects–if reported truthfully–so potentially dangerous and disastrous, that the authority’s first instinct, their first response, is to cover them up, to withhold evidence, to mislead people, to–if they can–manufacture such an effective disinformation campaign, to fuzz things up so completely, that no one will ever be able to definitively determine just exactly what happened.
Thus, while many people will have the suspicion, the feeling that “something is not right here,” nonetheless, the most pedestrian, the most benign, the least disruptive explanation will be accepted.
This, I am afraid, is one of those “occurrences.”
Snow on Pine on April 17, 2019 at 4:46 pm at 4:46 pm said:
Whether this fire was deliberately set or an accident …
* * *
Professor Plum, in the sacristy, with a candelabra.
See, as well, this news story at:
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/apr/17/man-gas-cans-arrested-st-patricks-cathedral-new-yo/
In the context of my remarks here yesterday, about finding out the truth about a major, politically charged incident, and possible attempts at disinformation, there are videos that have emerged.
The question here is their date and time, their source, their veracity, whether they have been manipulated in any way, and the motive or motives behind their appearance.
See http://dcwhispers.com/the-video-authorities-dont-want-you-to-see-mystery-person-flash-of-light-before-notre-dame-cathedral-fire/
If the French security officials were doing their jobs, I’d imagine that there were cameras focused, 24/7, on various exterior portions of the premier Christian religious symbol that is Notre Dame.
If there are such surveillance pictures, and they captured anything of significance, I wonder what they show?
In those circumstances, that is, rehabilitation going on, lots of paint, paint thinner, caulking, other substances, rags, tarps. electrical cords everywhere to power lights, heat guns, etc., etc., etc., how could you tell? If a worker leaves a slightly defective plug next to a pile of oily rags, how are you ever going to know if it was deliberate or accidental?
“I don’t see why the Great Frog couldn’t have given us about 600 times longer to live.” — Julie
Actually, we have even longer than that —
Lots of time for sight-seeing in eternity!
“If a worker leaves a slightly defective plug next to a pile of oily rags, ” – Richard
We used to read Fine Houmebuilding and other magazines of that ilk, and I think this story was in one of those, now many years ago — but I’ve remembered and used it as a caution lesson.
A youngish couple were building their dream home; got it all finished after much toil and money; did the final varnishing of the wooden floor; dropped all their rags in a heap, and left for the night.
Well, you know what happened next.
Heartbreaking.