The Fire

People who have visited Paris, particularly those who are Catholic, have memories of Notre Dame, the stately 13th-century cathedral with flying buttresses that looks out over the city from an island in the Seine. 

Yesterday it burst into flames, probably from a mishap during renovations. Some of it was destroyed-- the extent of the damage will be hard to assess until the flames are finally extinguished and the area cools.

That sight on the news-- of the beautiful cathedral apparently burning down-- was a shock to the system. Our news cycle seems designed to constantly provoke us, but there was something different about this breaking development, something more deeply tragic.

I remember going with my Dad to the Del Ray section of Detroit years ago. The area had been utterly devastated by neglect, environmental abuse, vandalism, and arson. But as we drove I saw something that stopped me cold: a church that was completely burned out, only identifiable by its husk and a few remaining marks of the cross. It was burned and then abandoned; no one had fenced it off or tried to save it, or even knocked it down. It just stared back at me.

Still, I shiver when I think of that.

Notre Dame will be rebuilt. It is part of a cultural heritage as well as a religious one.

But what of the churches we have let burn and abandoned, in reality or metaphorically? What is the cost of that loss?