From the article:
This is years old now, but it pinpoints the churches and cathedrals that have “caught fire” in France.
— Darren Grimes (@darrengrimes_) July 11, 2024
The beautiful Rouen cathedral is the latest to have “caught fire”.
France’s newcomers are notoriously clumsy. pic.twitter.com/4quklpM3Yl
First order of business: increase the number of "No Smoking" signs in French churches.
Has Justin Trudeau weighed in on this, justifying the arson?
ReplyDeleteYou know, like he did with the attacks on Canadian churches?
The French, like the English, don't seem to be particularly religious anymore, so I'd rather see the churches burned than turned into mosques.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good thing muslims are very tolerant of Christianity, or I'd think maybe they were the reason for all the fires.
ReplyDelete...so I'd rather see the churches burned than turned into mosques.
Unless burning them is just the first step, followed by clearing, and building a mosque in its place.
It may surprise, but after 1965's 'Vatican II' it was Catholic priests who were most enthusiastic about destroying the old church altars. To the dismay of old parishioners.
ReplyDeleteEven now, I hear of priests who'd like to 'smash the old churches' so they could focus on evangelism.
Instead of everyone facing the altar in worship like we used to, the priests wanted to face the congregation, as Vat II taught.
I was raised Catholic through all the 1966 Vat II changes and it dismayed me. It was like our churches had become Protestant overnight - as I understood it, lots of small talk, no more obedience and rote-belief. No more Latin, 'dominus vobiscum', 'mea maxima culpa', all gone.
By the late 1970s I knew hippy priests with long hair who celebrated Mass (Sacrament of Eucharist) under a tree - and went surfing afterwards 'For the young people'.
Hollywood made a 1966 movie, 'The Trouble With Angels' starring Hayley Mills and Rosalind Russell, which already foreshadowed all 'the changes' as everyone called it.
I've kept in touch with Church insiders and they told me about priests who hate their churches even now. The world is stranger than I ever imagined.
PS, as much as some want to blame us baby-boomers, it was the older folks who pushed all this on us in the 1960s. They made us think this was all inevitable. But as I say, it's a strange world.
ReplyDeleteAt Catholic school we were encouraged to follow people like Dorothy Day who was born in 1897!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Day
It was like our churches had become Protestant overnight - as I understood it, lots of small talk, no more obedience and rote-belief. No more Latin, 'dominus vobiscum', 'mea maxima culpa', all gone.
ReplyDeleteThat certainly resonates with me. I converted to Catholicism in the late 70s, and even then I knew that I was mostly attracted to what the church had been, not what it was at the time (certainly not what it is now under the, to put it euphemistically, "unwise" leadership of Francis).
Of course, we found great solace in the Latin rite which was practiced at St. Joseph's in Richmond, VA (this is the church that triggered the FBI's initial look into conservative Catholicism and its "threat" to domestic peace).
ReplyDeleteThinking about it now, I can see why some priests hated their churches. They felt powerfully called to preach the Gospel, but found themselves spending a lot of time as caretakers of old buildings, often needing repairs.
ReplyDeleteJust to dedicate yourself to lifelong celibate priesthood takes a very spiritually inspired person. The day-to-day management of buildings would seem a great burden.
Remember that Elvis movie with Mary Tyler Moore as a nun? That has the spirit I'm talking about - the idea that Catholics had to get out of the cloisters and incense and engage with 'reality', with the poor and desperate.
ReplyDeleteIt made sense at the time. It's just that taken too far you ended up with chaos.
We had a small group of nuns in our town like that, living in an ordinary house and visiting people, trying to help. Dressed modestly, with crucifix around neck. They sold the house now, don't know where they went.
See, we never even saw a Bible, what to speak of reading it, in the old days. So much of our knowledge of Christianity in the 1950s and 1960s came from movies!
ReplyDelete