Notre Dame Shows Us How Much We Care About Things Over Human Life.

For any religious person watching Notre Dame, one of the world’s most beautiful cathedrals go up in flames during the most holy week of the Christian calendar, a sense of heaviness filled your heart. Not only because it was a breath-taking piece of architecture which has stood for over 700 years, but it was a holy place, scared in the hearts of many, like any place of gathering for worship and prayer.


Watching Notre Dame burn brought pain to my heart and to the hearts of many, seeing the Cathedral burn and collapse around a glowing cross sitting still at is the centre, refusing to fall.


Then the pledges began to pour in. At first it was announced that two French billionaires wold collectively donate over 300 million to the restoration of Notre Dame. To a hurting heart this provided a sense of relief.


Ideas of how it could be restored flooded my mind and how it could reunite people of faith all over the world and take a stand for victory and unity.


But overnight as the pledges and donations continued to flood in something began to feel off. As a believer, Norte Dame meant something to me but not as much as maybe it should.

It’s incredible but I can’t help but think, it’s just a building.


 As billionaires and luxury fashion brands like Gucci came together donating huge amounts it became clear what our priorities are as a society. It took such a short amount of time for the most elite individuals and companies in the world to pool together huge amount of money for a tragedy in which the was no human life lost or hurt.


Why do we care so much about a building over human life?


Why has it been years since the Grenfell Tower tragedy, where human life was lost and many still remain without a permanent home there seems to be no funding – no attention even, no signs of concern from any billionaires or companies or governments.


The irony of the situation to me is this – Jesus didn’t care for impressive buildings, religious rules or beautiful architecture. He cared about human life, love and helping those in need. So, in a world full of injustice and pain the idea of hundreds of millions of pounds going to the restoration of a building and not to helping the victims of Grenfell tower, the homeless, the people of Puerto Rico, the crisis in Yemen, or removing the lead pipes in Flint so people can have clean and safe water.


This moment in time marks yet again humanity getting life and faith totally wrong, although Notre dame is beautiful, and it would be a celebration to see it stand again but perhaps in a cheaper and different way symbolising unity and progress without costing hundreds of millions of pounds.

However, spending millions on the restoration of a building when people can pray anywhere, just as Jesus taught, rather than saving and helping millions of human lives proves you are further from God than ever.