Restoring faith, not digging up the past

‘The pain of the 15 April 2019 is effaced… even if the astonishment caused by the fire will endure.’ With these words, archbishop of Paris Laurent Ulrich consecrated the new altar at Notre-Dame. Notre-Dame de Paris – Our Lady of Paris – was seriously damaged in a fire in 2019, making visitors to the city from all around the world restless for five years for the restoration work to be complete. Last Saturday, the cathedral’s doors were reopened. Those entering this magnificent church founded in 1163 were attending a ceremony that outshone any Met Gala or Oscars in its sheer class and sobriety that even Donald Trump, sitting next to Emmanuel Macron, couldn’t upset.

The true residents of Notre-Dame, of course, are the grotesques carved on the Gothic church’s walls that include gargoyles, chimeras and striges, mythological birds of ill omen. And who knows, under the two bell towers, Quasimodo, the hunchback from Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel, the popularity of which led to Notre-Dame’s restoration between 1844 and 1864, 40-60 years after Napoleon crowned himself emperor here. A Roman temple to Jupiter is believed to have stood on Notre-Dame’s site. But instead of getting worked up about digging up a lost past, France dedicated its energy to restoring one of most beautiful places of worship that can make even an atheist doubt atheism. Quasimodo would be proud.