Blog Song

Thursday, May 2, 2019

The Fire in Notre Dame

Some people say that while Notre Dame was burning they saw the figure of Jesus Christ in the flames.  And one of the first things that was seen as the fire was put out was the cross.  The photo on the left went viral as some people claimed to see the figure of Christ.  The photo on the right was taken from the air, where one can see the burning cross. 


Image result for Burning of Notre DameImage result for Burning of Notre Dame

Some people interpreted the burning of Notre Dame as a sign of a burning away of faith across Europe while others interpreted it to mean a revival of faith as they see a figure of Christ in it. The following article was written by Father Gordon MacRae, which you can find here.   
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Notre Dame Burned but the Smoke of Satan Is More Subtle

Some time ago, I wrote a post about the great 19th Century French writer, Victor Hugo and his literary masterpiece, the title of which was incorporated into “Les Misérables: The Bishop and the Redemption of Jean Valjean.” Though written several years ago, it remains one of the most-read and visited posts on These Stone Walls.
It was never intended to be so, but its principle readership these days consists primarily of high school students looking for an angle on the story for book reports and term papers. They come to TSW from China and India, England and South Africa, Argentina and Australia, and from across the vast North American continent. Some come from Poland, but virtually none from France or elsewhere in the European Union.
The student marauders of my post seem to find what they are looking for. Teachers across the world must be tiring of my revelation that Victor Hugo received resistance from his young adult son who wanted the character of the saintly French bishop Charles Francois Bienvenu Myriel, Bishop of Digne, written out of the first draft of Les Misérables.
The younger Hugo argued that no one in post-Revolution France could relate to the character of a faithful, benevolent Catholic bishop. He wanted to replace Bishop Bienvenu with someone whose benevolence the people of post-Revolutionary France could more easily envision. He wanted to replace the bishop with a lawyer. Catholic leaders might ponder that irony before handing oversight of the Church over to their lawyers.
This story seems a harbinger of what Catholic Europe went on to become in the century and a half since Victor Hugo wrote Les Misérables in 1862. More than just national identity has been absorbed by the European Union. Today only about ten percent of Catholics in France and much of Europe – with the striking exception of Poland – openly practice their faith.
Which brings me to the scene I witnessed from a distance – though with no less sorrow than if I had been there – on Monday evening of Holy Week this year. I returned from work late in the afternoon to a television screen filled with smoke and sorrow as the Paris Cathedral of Notre Dame was fully engulfed in flames. It was night in Paris, and the torturous flames rose high above the city illuminating billows of dark smoke in a scene straight out of the Apocalypse.
As the news spread and the flames burned long into the night, the full weight of what was burning before the eyes of the world cast a pall over Holy Week, that most sacred time of year for Catholics. The next morning in The Wall Street Journal, architectural historian Michael J. Lewis described the scene as “A Hole in the Heart of Paris” (WSJ April 16, 2019).
Mr. Lewis approached the story as “a catastrophe” for world culture, and indeed it is. The mighty oak timbers of the roof, now entirely lost, were a monument to 13th century carpentry. The vast oak timber roof that endured for eight centuries could never be replaced in the same manner in which it was built. The timbers came from trees that even in the 12th Century were over 400 years old. France no longer even has oak trees that can produce such timbers.
The architectural marvel of Notre Dame was begun in 1163, six centuries before the birth of the United States. Construction under three designers, each for whom Notre Dame was a life’s magnum opus, was not completed until two centuries later. Notre Dame survived the onslaught of the French Revolution. Rioters stormed the Cathedral to throw down the statues in the Gallery of Kings above its west façade “in the mistaken belief that these were French, not biblical kings,” according to Lewis.
THE BELL-RINGER OF NOTRE DAME
And it survived Victor Hugo’s other literary masterpiece, The Hunchback of Notre Dame – originally entitled simply “Notre Dame de Paris.” The cover for the 1831 novel featured a sketch of the iconic towers and the elegant spire. Erected in a 19th Century renovation, the spire became, according to Michael J. Lewis, an “essential feature of the Paris skyline” when cameras recorded its fatal collapse into the flames on Monday of Holy Week.
The beloved novel contained entire chapters about the marvel of the cathedral’s construction, magnificence, and “birds-eye view” of 15th Century Paris. While Notre Dame was the framework for Victor Hugo’s tale, at its heart were the rights and plight of one of literature’s most tragic and sympathetic figures, the deformed Quasimodo, abandoned as an infant at Notre Dame’s door. The novel quelled the post-Revolutionary mob and “aroused a swell of public sentiment for the ravaged” cathedral, according to Lewis.
Now Notre Dame is ravaged again. After the Holy Week fire nearly destroyed this beloved monument, a reader of the political site, Conservative Tree House, sent me this comment which was written on Monday of Holy Week and reposted on TSW’s “Waking Up in the Garden of Gethsemane”:
“The architectural footprint of medieval cathedrals is the form of a cross. This afternoon when the burning cross photo from the police drone was posted, my heart sank. All I could see was the full structure ablaze. The photo caption stated that the aerial view showed the spread of the fire far more clearly than the ground view could capture.
“Tonight, having seen the online photos of the post-fire interior, and the miracle of that saved interior, the fiery cross photo reveals something else. Something entirely spiritual and miraculous. Today the blazing Cross of Jesus Christ, the unblemished, beloved, sacrificed Lamb of God, lit up the entire world on the internet. Just hours before, all Christendom turns eyes and hearts toward the Last Supper, the Trial, the Scourging, the Cross, and the Crucified Christ.
“During the holiest time of the year, by way of a terrible fire and a photo taken by a drone in the sky, all eyes were on today’s reminder of the Sacrifice made at Calvary in preparation for the Resurrection of the Son of God.”
Bishop Athanasius Schneider suggested in a commentary that the devastating fire at Notre Dame represents “a conflagration” – a burning away – of faith across Europe. With the roof of the beloved Cathedral burned away, the view from above is one of an interior that is miraculously intact, as the commenter above states, but strewn with wreckage, its vast sacred art and relics rescued by teams of heroic Parisian firefighters.
I was moved to see the throngs of believers across Paris in prayerful vigil for Notre Dame. Perhaps Bishop Schneider is right. If this disaster is a symbol of the burning away of faith across Europe, then Paris has an opportunity here to lead the West through another French Revolution, a revolution against the demise of the nation’s Catholic heritage.
THE RESURRECTION OF FAITH
A young Latino man came to speak with me in the Library where I work one day. He told me of his interest in going to the prison chapel on Sunday mornings because he thought this might be good for him. At age 20, he is part of a generation of Catholics lost when a previous generation drifted away. There are two opportunities for Christians on a Sunday morning in the prison chapel. There is a sort of generic Protestant service at 8:30 AM and a Catholic Mass at 9:30 AM.
The following week back in the Library, the same young man asked me why I did not go to the chapel. I explained that I offer Mass in my cell when I can late at night, but I also attend the Catholic Mass on Sunday. “Well, I was there,” he said, “and I did not see you.” It struck me that this young man knew nothing of the difference between a Catholic Mass and the generic Protestant service he attended.
I told him about Catholicism, and about his ancestors going back 2000 years who embraced their Catholic faith as the central force in their lives. “To turn your back on it,” I said, “is to squander your own heritage.” He had no idea, and now attends Catholic Mass where he thirsts for the salvation that had been denied to him by the neglect of a past generation.
And the world accuses us of child abuse! R.R. Reno, a Catholic convert, and the Editor of First Thingsmagazine has an editorial in the May 2019 issue entitled “Faith Amid Corruption” in which he makes a painful observation that sadly, but not irreparably, captures the state of Catholicism in the Western World:
“The Catholic Church in the West is full of corruption – financial, sexual, and spiritual. We are forced to face this hard reality, not the least because the weak pontificate of Pope Francis offers so little of substance. The corruption that afflicts us does not arise from overpowering lusts. Our age is one of nihilism, which empties the soul. The specter of nothingness paralyzes us.
“In an earlier age, the Church’s swaggering spiritual pride bred vainglorious prelates who preached down at the faithful from what they imagined were supreme spiritual heights. In our age, we suffer weak, managerial clergy who address us in therapeutic tones. Their greatest ambition, it seems, is to broker a concordat with the sexual revolution so that Catholics need never feel the least tension with the world’s ethos.”
That assessment, I am sad to write, is brilliant and accurate. An example of the “weak, managerial clergy who address us in therapeutic tones” has been coming from a wave of “top down” clerics – in Rome and across the Western World – who seem willing to set aside the Gospel for the sake of accommodating this world’s current politically correct ethos.
This is most evident in the hierarchical approach to the most visible of our scandals presently burning away the roof of the Church: the Catholic clergy sexual abuse story.
THE MEASURE WITH WHICH YOU MEASURE
I listened to The World Over with Raymond Arroyo again last week as three men I respect, Raymond Arroyo, Robert Royal, and Father Gerald Murray – the “Papal Posse” – spoke of the need to apply “Pro Bono Ecclesiae” as the operative standard for addressing this story. “Pro Bono Ecclesiae” is one of the most abused terms in contemporary Catholic thought. It means “For the Good of the Church,” but more often it is used to mean for the good of the bishop or bureaucrat who is invoking it.
It is currently cited to justify setting aside the fundamental human rights of the most expendable class of people in this sad story: Catholic priests. To suggest observing or protecting the rights of the accused is now contrary to the good of the Church, but it also requires setting aside the Gospel as irrelevant.
In the ten years in which I have been writing for These Stone Walls, I hear from a phenomenal number of engaged and involved – and sometimes marginalized and estranged – Catholics. They want more than any other quality for their bishops to be more like the faithful Bishop Bienvenu, the hero of Les Misérables, and less like the self-serving “managerial clergy” who celebrate the triumph of the therapeutic that R.R. Reno describes.
I agree with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in his recently published statement for which the spiritually corrupt are already attacking him. The sexual revolution of the 1960s to the 1980s – and the accommodation of Catholics to it, including in seminaries and among some of the clergy they produced – had afflicted the late 20th Century priesthood.
And I disagree with Pope Francis that clericalism has been the root cause of this problem. That seems no more than another accommodation to the therapeutic, and a denial of the sexual revolution’s wreckage at the heart of the clergy crisis. If there is anything left of clericalism, it now lays in symbolic ruins on the floor of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.
But I cannot agree with Pope Emeritus Benedict – whom I much love and respect – that setting aside the fundamental rights of the accused is what is now for the good of the Church. It is not. Pope Benedict lived his life against a regime that justified the suppression of human rights for one class of people under a pretense that it was for “the good of the Fatherland.” He knows the inevitable question: “Whose rights will they come for next?”
This is a matter that I personally confronted long ago with my own bishop. When the 2002 wave of corruption erupted, I wrote privately to my bishop that I would cease to write and would remain silently – though unjustly – in prison if he asked me to do this for the good of the Church.
The person who awakened me out of that misguided overture was Catholic League President Bill Donohue. He urged me in a letter not to remain silent. He wrote, “What is in the best interest
of the Church is the truth. Pursue the truth, and you are acting for the good of the Church.”
R.R. Rena points out in his fine First Things editorial that “we are being tested,” and that rings true. But passing the test does not mean – must not mean – setting aside the Gospel or the truth.
So when a Catholic bishop shuns one of his imprisoned priests in direct confrontation with the Gospel (Matthew 25:36) it is not for the good of the Church. It is for the good of the bishop, and there is too much of that self-justified virus going around right now. And I am not referring to myself when I write of the shunning of a priest in prison.
On the same night I watched the Cathedral of Notre Dame burn, I received a letter from a priest in his eighties written from prison some months ago. The priest was legally blind, and at the time he wrote it, he was terminally ill. For the sake of his family who may not have known the depths of his suffering, I am redacting his name and, reluctantly, that of his bishop:
“Dear Father: Let me begin this letter asking the Holy Spirit to give me wisdom and insight. As I write this, I received a letter from Bishop N. I have received four letters from him in prison. The first two said that if I ever get out of prison he can do nothing for me. The third slapped me on the wrist for offering the Eucharist for a few fellow prisoners under an unusual circumstance.
“This last letter demands my removal from the clerical state. When I was ordained on June 2, 1962, I heard the words, ‘You are a priest forever.’ You cannot imagine the suffering that I have experienced since receiving this letter. I am 83 and blind. I am imprisoned, confined to a wheelchair and dying, but of all that I suffer, this is the worst. You can’t do anything to change his mind. He wants to announce that I am no longer a priest and that he did something – a knee jerk reaction to the Pennsylvania story. I pray that I may die by October when this is supposed to happen.”
After fifty-six years of priesthood Father N. was dismissed from the clerical state in October and died weeks later in prison. I am sorry, but I do not think this merciless act represents the fidelity that faithful Catholics hope for in their bishops.
There are priests falsely accused and wrongfully imprisoned. I am convinced, for example, that Cardinal George Pell is one of them. The administrative dismissal of Father N. without a canonical trial and a defense – even if guilty – had no honor and satisfied no one. Pornchai Moontri, in his recent guest post, “Imprisoned by Walls, Set Free by Wood” wrote:
“I have learned – painfully but I hope with some honor – the hardest lesson of all: that being the recipient of such mercy means that I must also practice it. I can’t forget what Father G wrote in a recent post: “The Measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.” (Luke 6:38)
It seems there are some bishops so unaware of their own need for mercy that they need not practice it. There is no form of “Pro Bono Ecclesiae” that leads Church leaders away from fidelity to the Gospel of Mercy and Truth. We abandon mercy to our spiritual peril. Fires are extinguished but a Church Triumphant would not allow the Smoke of Satan to creep so quietly in.

15 comments:

  1. This is my opinion on the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. I agree with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in that the sex abuse scandal that is in the Church and outside the Church is the result of the sexual revolution of the 1960s. I remember that this was spoken about in one of our annual retreat. Here in Guam, there are so many sexual offenses in our community. Pope Francis was correct in that there are more sexual offenses outside the Catholic Church. However, most people focus their attention on the Catholic Church until recently.

    People in Guam came out protesting the numerous sexual offences in our community. People came out with the word "Enough" written on their palms. The sexual revolution started outside the Church, but found its way into some Catholic seminaries, tainting the formation of the priesthood.

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    1. "The sexual revolution started outside the Church, but found its way into some Catholic seminaries, tainting the formation of the priesthood."

      And more recently, nuns have also been accused of sexual abuse. Abuse of minor children in Catholic schools and of novice sisters in their religious orders.

      Some leaders of other Christian denominations have also been cited for sexual abuse by members of their church communities.

      Satan has attacked the weakness of the flesh of people of all walks of life.

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    2. Sexual abuse definitely occurs outside of the Church. But our local news media reports the more juicy sexual abuse within the Church.

      CNN reports "Sexual assaults across the US military increased by a rate of nearly 38% in 2018, according to a report released by the Pentagon on Thursday."
      https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/02/politics/us-military-sexual-assault-report/index.html

      And we have seen in the news of female teachers having sexual relationships with their minor male students.
      https://heavy.com/news/2018/06/teacher-sex-offender-allegations-female-photos/

      Lord have mercy on us all.

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  2. This isn't in the OP but,there also happens to be a small evil slowly emerging from the darkness.There's this idea being pushed that people suffering with gender dysphoria cannot be cured without transitioning and that parents who think their child might have it basically have to let the child who doesn't know what he or she wants,be the parent.This is harming many kids who might just be going through a phase and most of the time transitioning does not cure them but makes the individual suffer even more.I heard one time that if the church isn't preaching against something,the secular world will,but in a distorted way.Most people who try to preach against the idea I'm talking about are not religious and usually end up being called "Transphobes".While they are telling people the truth,they do it without charity most of the time and sometimes even make fun of them.Which gives mediocre results.Then there's the "warriors" that defend the lie WITH charity,and only end up pleasing selfishness,causing disastrous results.

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    1. Dear Anonymous at 4:38 pm,

      It was in the 1960s when the Sexual Revolution occurred. The depathologizing of homosexuality by gay activists occurred in the late 1960s through threats and violence. Homosexuality was classified as a disorder by the American Psychiatric Association. Once the gay activists were successful in getting homosexuality off the DSM-II, it would only be a matter of time before people would also start accepting transgender. Some people are beginning to think that a woman trapped in a man's body is normal rather than a disorder. They cannot see that this is the same delusion as the person who thinks he/she is superman or supergirl and can fly like a bird.

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  3. And With the help of Tim Rohr and the Jungle!! Instead of churches burning down church property are being sold

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  4. Another sexual abuse claim has been made and a suit filed for $5,000,000. Once again, the 'standard' $5,000,000 dollar figure. How can the Archdiocese of Agana pay the over $1 billion total claims? By directing all church collections from now into the future to go to satisfying the $1 billion in claims? Are these sexual abuse claims being investigated as to their validity? Practically all the targeted priests have died and cannot defend themselves. Now there is an August 2019 deadline for any more claims to be filed. What is stop more supposed 'victims' to enrich themselves with this 'gravy train' of the Archdiocese of Agana?

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    1. All deceased priests seem to be fair game for sexual abuse claims? Won't be surprised if Bishop Baumgartner and Bishop Flores are accused. And maybe only a matter of time for Bishop Byrnes to be accused as well. When will the insanity end?

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    2. Dear Anonymous at 8:40 am,

      They have already started. Last year, Father George Maddock died on September 30, 2018 at the age of 81. He was highly praised by several students. Then a few days later after his death, a lawsuit was filed accused him of sexual abuse. A month has not even gone by after his death, and someone had already come forward with a lawsuit accusing him of child sexual abuse.

      Bishop Flores was already accused of child sexual abuse. See the weblink below:

      https://www.postguam.com/news/local/lawsuit-accuses-archbishop-flores/article_68955b78-4780-11e7-96f2-db6cd34bd122.html

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  5. Congratulations to transitional Deacons Junee Valencia and Ron Pangan. Soon they will be ordained priests for our Archdiocese of Agana. They are completing their studies and formation at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, California. No mention in the news media regarding their early studies at the Redemptoris Mater Seminary here in Guam.

    Since Archbishop Byrnes closed the RMS Guam, the RMS seminarians had to find other dioceses around the world to continue their formation for the priesthood. Since RMS Guam’s closure in December 2017, former RMS Guam seminarians have been ordained priests. They include Fathers Cesar, Jose Santos, Juan Alberto, Kenneth O’Reilly, Guy, Martin, Tavete and Victor. Later this month, former RMS Guam seminarians Darren, Gabe, Preston, Drazen and Edmond will be ordained transitional deacons. Eight priests and five more to be soon ordained priests – all from the former RMS Guam.

    If RMS Guam was allowed to remain open, the Archdiocese of Agana would have 8 priests. And 7 transitional deacons who would soon be ordained priests. Wow! Instead of just Junee and Ron, Guam could have had 15 more priests! And more seminarians in the future would have been ordained priests.

    I have heard the comments of many people who complained about the RMS seminarians not being local and not from Guam. What about Blessed Diego de San Vitores who brought the Catholic faith to Guam? He was from Spain. What about the Capuchins, the Jesuits, and priests from other orders who came to serve Guam? What about Bishop Baumgartner? What about Bishop Byrnes? They were not from Guam, but through God’s will, served Guam. What about Jesus Christ himself? Are we to complain and judge Jesus for not being local and from Guam?

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    1. Whoever complained about seminarians and priests not being local and from Guam was stupid is saying that. By what authority and what qualifications did this person have in making that judgment?

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  6. Thank.........ROHR ):<>

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  7. Rohr isn't from Guam. He's not local. Just as God used nonlocals to spread the Gospels, so does Satan used nonlocals to destroy what was built.

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  8. "Exactly"....5:51 PM


    ..

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  9. Tim said in his blog that CCOG paid for The sexual abuse Advertizement That's starting at all, Is that true CCOG Destroying their own church And they call themselves concerned Catholic from Guam, I wonder how much money Timmy's gonna get And David

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