Notre Dame in a Secular Age

The reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris five years after a fire spotlights the glories of Europe at a moment when the continent appears intent on showcasing its worst. President Macron calls the restoration “a human adventure of epic proportions,” and it is difficult not to feel a sense of awe toward God and man for the revival of this place of prayer, whose cornerstone was first laid in 1163 of the common era.Credit is due to the handiwork of more than 2,000 craftsmen who have brought Notre Dame back to her medieval magnificence. The stained glass is sumptuous, and the interior creamy and luminous. The reconstruction cost more than 700 million Euros, and donations flowed in from more than 150 countries. More than 200 companies lent their expertises, and firefighters saved France’s greatest relic, the Crown of Thornes, from the blaze. The Paris of 2024, though, has a way to go to show that it is worthy of this Gothic marvel. How has the concept of laïcité worked out for France? It comprises such a rigid principle — if principle is the right word — of secularism we can’t help but wonder whether it casts a pall over religion itself. At times the Fifth Republic appears intent on unwinding the civilizational achievements accumulated over the last nine centuries.France has now rebuilt Notre Dame, but will its pews prosper in a country known as the “eldest daughter of the Church”? France does not keep official religious statistics, but by all accounts the ranks of the faithful are thinning. The Enlightenment sage Voltaire once wrote “Once we have destroyed the Jesuits, we shall have our own way with the infamous thing” — meaning the Church. Will decline achieve what outright destruction could not?Contemporary France has hardly been spared religious fanaticism — it has just come from radical Islam. Nearly 11 percent of the population are immigrants, largely from North Africa. From the Bataclan attacks to the attacks at the offices of Charlie Hebdo to the unrelenting attacks against Jews — the murders of Sarah Halimi, Mireille Knoll, and others. Nearly three in four French Jews have experienced antisemitism.Matters have only gotten worse since October 7, with more and more French Jews reckoning that life in France is becoming intolerable. Our Michel Gurfinkiel reports that Mr. Macron “has shifted repeatedly and dramatically between pro-Israeli and anti-Israeli positions.” To his left is the antisemitic Jean-Luc Mélenchon. To Mr. Macron’s right is Marine Le Pen, who has stood up for the Jews — a shift of its own for France’s right.It would be good if Mr. Macron’s visit to Notre Dame — the cathedral opens to the public later this week — brought the president some Divine wisdom. Backing away, as Mr. Macron has done, from a commitment to arrest Prime Minister Netanyahu if he lands on French soil is a good start, but France’s equivocations have emboldened forces hostile to not only the Jews, but the creed that inspired the building of Notre Dame — and its restoration.

Notre Dame in a Secular Age

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