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Purgatory : Notre Dame de Paris: identity and theology of place
Over in All Saints, @Galilit wrote:
I would like to explore this idea. I feel the loss (or at least massive damage to) Notre Dame at the level of culture and national identity (as widely commented on in All Saints), but I'm uncomfortable about the interaction between that and religious identity.
I'm concerned about what sort of narratives might emerge from this event. Specifically, the idea of reasserting the idea of France as a "Christian country" of which Notre Dame is the epicentre (it performs the function of Charing Cross in the UK in that all distances are measured from it).
To my mind, while France has its history and heritage, today it is multicultural and multifaith.
However, take Marine Maréchal-Le Pen, niece of Marine Le Pen, with both Catholic and Pentecostal family: she has temporarily withdrawn from politics to train up a cadre of far-right nationalists with a strong dose of Catholicism mixed in, and I'm very chary of a toxic mix of religion and national identity emerging and winning populist votes.
And over in the UK, how many today would echo the sentiment expressed by @Galilit's grandmother about St Paul's?
And what is a theology of place anyway? How can it be independent of specific religious belief or observance?
[Notre Dame is] one of those places that is central to everyone's sense of identity and theology of place (whatever their religion or observance).
It reminds me of a story my maternal Grandmother used to tell me when I was a girl. That during WWII she would think "as long as St Paul's Cathedral is standing there is hope for Britain".
I would like to explore this idea. I feel the loss (or at least massive damage to) Notre Dame at the level of culture and national identity (as widely commented on in All Saints), but I'm uncomfortable about the interaction between that and religious identity.
I'm concerned about what sort of narratives might emerge from this event. Specifically, the idea of reasserting the idea of France as a "Christian country" of which Notre Dame is the epicentre (it performs the function of Charing Cross in the UK in that all distances are measured from it).
To my mind, while France has its history and heritage, today it is multicultural and multifaith.
However, take Marine Maréchal-Le Pen, niece of Marine Le Pen, with both Catholic and Pentecostal family: she has temporarily withdrawn from politics to train up a cadre of far-right nationalists with a strong dose of Catholicism mixed in, and I'm very chary of a toxic mix of religion and national identity emerging and winning populist votes.
And over in the UK, how many today would echo the sentiment expressed by @Galilit's grandmother about St Paul's?
And what is a theology of place anyway? How can it be independent of specific religious belief or observance?
Comments
Instead of demolishing a small part of the play area the school was levelled. Their thoughts were different to my wifes in that they placed their trust in God doing something more wonderful in the next place they could set up the/a school.
Just another outlook
Theology of Place is really important to me.
I think perhaps if I had been less distressed about Notre Dame and then thinking about my Grandmother and my old French teachers ... I might have said "Resonance of Place". Places that are in our personal identity, in our bones. Which could be geographical or a building or maybe even gumboots or hokey-pokey ice cream or a "certain slant of light". It would exist in a nation/state/country but would not necessarily be identical or dependent on that. (Easy to say when you come from a discrete place like Aotearoa-New Zealand!) It would not even need to be a "thin place" - no religion necessary
In Maori the word would be
mauri = (noun) life principle, life force, vital essence, special nature, a material symbol of a life principle, source of emotions - the essential quality and vitality of a being or entity. Also used for a physical object, individual, ecosystem or social group in which this essence is located.
The kind of thing that makes the hairs on your forearms stand up when you think about it or in this case hear something has happened there. I think this is not a religious feeling but a very deep neurological reaction - A Feminine Force - please help us here
@Ricardus I agree. Macron's immediate declaration last night rather uncomfortably straddled that divide to my mind (and he was surrounded by a universally white audience, something I've also noticed to be overwhelmingly the case in the photos of the disaster I've seen).
I have little doubt the fundraising is largely motivated by cultural not religious sentiment, but also little doubt that the Catholic church is seeing this as an opportunity to reposition itself at the heart of the nation - rather more so than religious realities merit.
And how did that break down? Those who advocated for the restoration of the remnant of the past were tourism and business interests and those who saw a wonderful new opportunity were the Anglicans themselves ...
On the one hand, they never go near them, perceiving them (not incorrectly) to be besieged by tourists.
On the other hand, they have a highly personal and proprietorial approach to them. This is a sort of Lady Di moment in French history.
Paris is often unfavourably compared to London (by the French) as being a ville-musée ('museum city') with all new development relegated to the outer reaches, and I have a certain amount of sympathy with this idea (as a former Londoner, I love what's happened to the city since I left in terms of new developments). But at the same time we have a very fond attachment to our landmarks.
What was not reported in the Western -- at least American -- press was the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem also caught fire on the same day as Notre Dame. It seems this fire was arson with the fire starting in the guard house. A guard has been questioned about it.
I agree there are certain places that are indeed sacred. There is a place not two far from where I live where the Nez Perce Indians feel is the center of the universe. It is a very interesting site. The hills are shaped like a snake. The Nez Perce still have sacred rites there in the spring and fall.
However. I have seen times when a building becomes an idol. A church in a nearby community has existed for nearly 100 years now, but the congregation has refused to build another building that would be better suited for the needs of the congregation now. The current building is not up to code. If it ever catches fire it will be gone in minutes.
Churches, and cathedrals, come and go. I understand, of course, that ND de P is a special building - like St Paul's in London - but that it, and they, are, in the end, dispensable whilst the Faith still exists.
I recently read an account of the original (and rather eccentric) St Paul's Cathedral, and its destruction in the Great Fire of London in 1666. My impression FWIW is that the old cathedral - for all its faults and idiosyncrasies - was actually a better example of 'The Church In The World' than Wren's baroque tour de force, however architecturally perfect that might be.
YMMV, but please don't burn me.....
Places are incredibly important, not least I think because while they are still there we are somehow still the person who first saw them or knew them. When I discovered my old school had demolished the Victorian lodge that provided me with English lessons and a sixth-form common-room it felt like part of me had been taken away.
Will that do, for starters?
I'm not sure how the fact that €720 million - including public money - being pledged since last night is going to go down with the 'yellow vests' or those in the projects, either. In many ways this event highlights the social fracture in France as much as it unites us.
This is not to deny that God raises great beauty of destroyed stones in many people's lives all the time, but it is to say that this doesn't prevent a deep sense of loss and a profound need to restore that which is lost among many people, faithful and otherwise.
The exception would be the current home, but that's probably more to do with the loss of possessions that would result...
In all honesty, if Our Place (a big Edwardian red-brick backstreet church) burnt down tomorrow, I should be distressed and sad - but, OTOH, hopeful at the opportunity to Start Again!
Yes, yes, I know - Be Careful What You Wish For....
Actually, there was a possibility of demolition and rebuild, a few years ago, but it went against everybody's grain to destroy a sound and well-kept building. If the church had been falling apart, well.......
I was irritated when I visited the Holy Land by the number of 'X marks the spot' churches on Christian sites, drawing tourists to them. I often remained outside and simply took in the place from there. But some of the churches were special, sacred places, for me.
FWIW, I rather think it does.
You can even have an affinity for a place you haven't been to. or even for a place that is fictional.
My feelings today are that Parisians are above all sad, relieved that it wasn’t worse, and in a state of disbelief at the idea that we might have crossed over the river, looked along to the Ile de la Cité and seen that she wasn’t there anymore.
IMHO, Notre Dame is such a place.
YMMV.
It's a common feeling for many people regardless of their particular belief. I suspect the response, which I share but think is purely psychological, is akin to what can happen to people in immersion/isolation therapy. In the (relative) absence of external stimuli they imbue their surroundings with whatever preconceptions they have about the otherworld.
That's not to say the experience isn't wonderful and life-affirming and perfectly real for the person experiencing.
Haha! Indeed. Earlier this year the warehouse beside our church - literally separated only by a car's breadth driveway - caught fire and burnt to destruction. I watched the flaming embers bounce off our roof, the flames from the building towering over our building. 'Bye, bye' I thought and was surprised by how emotional it made me feel on behalf of the congregation (and the fine organ inside). But there was no wind, and the fire brigade were fab, and our church was completely unscathed. By, yes, watching it happen, I was thinking about where else we could go, and what a rebuild would look like!
Grateful we didn't have to find out, though!
The God of the Old Testament was known as a God of high places. I am not sure that there is a "thin-ness" between heaven and earth in such places. I certainly understand God to be in Piccadilly or Waterloo, but I would have to say I am more open to God in the mountains.
I’m a fan of this snippet from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh:
Earth’s crammed with heaven;
and every common bush afire with God;
but only he who sees, takes off his shoes.
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.
The so-called “thin places” are there to help us learn to look for and sense the divine everywhere, to see the whole world as “thin.”
I love cathedrals, and found Notre Dame magnificent when I visited it, but for me, they have never seemed particularly related to my faith. But then I grew up going to Baptist churches, so my associations will be different from people who grew up Catholic. Cathedrals were historical tourist attractions to me. I am Catholic now, but the aspect of Catholicism that attracts me is that of the saints who lived lives of simplicity and poverty. I don't associate God with place - I see God as transcending physical location. If anything, I feel most aware of God outdoors in the woods, in the countryside, by the sea - where I get a sense of vastness and natural beauty. And I also see it in terms of Jesus saying the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. No spiritual home on earth. The idea that nothing on earth lasts - that things can take a lifetime or more to build and be destroyed in seconds. This seems to me how life is. So I am not shocked or upset by a building being destroyed - I can't think of any building I would feel this about. My own home excepted, but not because of anything intrinsic about it, but only because I would be homeless without it.
So no bishop has his cathedra there? Then, yes, the church is more a heritage building in addition to being a historical cathedral. As secular as France is, that is more than likely the order of importance.
Wait and see.
This makes a lot of sense. But I also think that people hallow a place by praying there, or worshiping there, or meditating there, or whatever. Just as we wear the grass thin and hten bare by walking in the same place, we wear the veil thin by applied spirituality/holiness in a place.
I agree about the Kölner Dom, but I have also encountered Deity in Westminster Abbey, at Canterbury Cathedral, and, especially, at York Minster; singing there (in our visiting American choir) was a moving spiritual experience that I will never forget.
I worry about the stones (and statues) at Notre-Dame being stressed and cracked by the heat, and I hope the cathedral can be restored in a relatively short time. By the way, one of the stories I frantically perused yesterday quoted a man named Mohammed, weeping and saying that the building "is France; it is ours."
A great deal of the structure seems to have survived, and I can't imagine them wanting either to tear it down or leave it as-is, unusable, in the middle of Paris.
I was in Dresden last fall. Over the years they have re-built substantial parts of the old city centre that was largely destroyed during the firebombing near the end of World War II. Some may have been relatively easy decisions, where substantial parts of the shell at least were left, but I gather others were hard calls. The Frauenkirche in the middle of Dresden was almost entirely destroyed, and was left that way for a long time as a memorial. They have now re-built it substantially from scratch. I'm not entirely sure what I think of the result, though I gather there was (and is) very strong local support for the decision to rebuild it.
Is the tl;dr version basically that religion is private, secularism is public; it's a correction to the pre-Revolution abuses of power by clergy; and it's all kind of mixed together with heritage, national pride, and *maybe* some confusion over all that?
Said and meant respectfully. Just trying to understand.
Thx.
Would it be acceptable to use something other than wooden beams and a lead roof?
In general the people making this argument don't tend to be people in favor of helping the poor anyway.
I read that there are no trees big enough these days to replace the original ceiling beams so it would have to be a different technique anyway
Laïcité ('secularity') was originally a correction against the hegemony of the Catholic church in all walks of life, but was structured to provide a level playing field for all faiths and none. The law enshrining this (and the possession of historic Church property by the state) dates back to 1905.
The practical upshot has historically been the private/public divide you mention, particularly in public buildings and most especially state education, in which secularism has practically become a creed in its own right rather than a system to be applied. You can barely mention Christianity or any other religion in a school or university context.
The Catholic church, meanwhile, has never really integrated the concept behind the 1905 law, and the hierarchy never seems to have come to terms with the secularisation of France or the emergence of Islam in particular. In some quarters, this can result in a toxic blend of religious nationalism in which the "mother country" means a Catholic mother country and no brown people.
There's a lot of talk of national unity around Notre Dame right now, but my perception is that it's a bit like the "Leave" vote in the Brexit referendum: everybody agrees that it's a national symbol, but there is no agreement at all about what that symbol means.
As I said before, there's definitely a whiff of opportunism about the Catholic response in using this event to try and rebrand France as a Catholic country. Macron had a major speech planned at the time of the fire in response to the 'yellow vests' protests to announce new social measures, and cancelled it due to the disaster (we still don't know if or when the speech is to happen).
My local archbishop went into print saying, amongst other things, that Macron had had the good sense to shut up because Notre Dame spoke more loudly than Macron ever could.
Which is an unusually politically loaded statement from an archbishop here, and sits rather uncomfortably with the huge amounts of money already raised - or earmarked from public funds - for the rebuilding at a time when the lower middle classes have been demonstrating for 22 weeks straight on the grounds that they're struggling to make ends meet.