From The Ashes: Faith, Not Fashion, Resurrected Notre Dame

This past weekend, leaders from across the world— and Donald Trump— descended on Paris for the re-christening of Nôtre Dame cathedral which was nearly destroyed by fire in 2019. Most, if not all, decided that the restoration had been brilliant.

Typical of the reaction was a largely respectful CBS News 60 Minutes segment describing the process of restoring Notre Dame. In finishing the work in five years the workers had “made possible the unthinkable.” Yet 60 Minutes failed to talk about the religious meaning of Nôtre Dame to Parisians. Like so many, 60 Minutes considers it a gothic landmark more than a Catholic place of worship.

Which is like describing the Smithsonian as a storage shed. Yes, the fire was the near-extinction of an an architectural marvel, a tourist icon, a movie setting. But for many the building was the personification of a people’s faith, their craftsmanship and their Catholic traditions throughout the Middle Ages and into the present. It was their past and their future under the protection of the Virgin Mary.

A squat Romanesque church had stood on the Île de la Cité site since around the year 500 AD. The restored version we know today, with its use of the rib vault and flying buttress, its enormous rose windows, and the abundance of its sculptural decoration, was started in 1163 and was altered periodically over the centuries. (The famous tower was a nineteenth-century addition.) Work was done by generations united in their Catholic faith and in the power of the emerging French state.

Anonymous people spent lifetimes toiling on Nôtre Dame without ever witnessing the completion of their work. And still the master masons, draughtsmen and carpenters saw through their commitment. They worshipped the idea of a Gothic world reaching into the sky to be closer to God. While people perished from war, famine and plague over the centuries, and the French Revolution of 1780 stripped Nôtre Dame of its status as a church for a quarter century, there was money and energy still found to complete this astonishing church.

What inspiration compelled people in the Middle Ages to these heights in an era that people today dismiss as a dark hole in history? It might have been civic pride, outdoing the great French cathedrals at Rennes, Soissons, Cluny and Reims. It might have been the vanity of French kings and bishops. It was certainly devotion to a higher order.

What it was not, says Fr. Augustine Thompson, the current President of the Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies at St. Michael’s College in Toronto, was the values that modern people like CBS News have attached to Nôtre Dame as it climbed into the sky above Paris. Those values defy simplified contemporary explanations. “What you say about the Middle Ages Is affected not at all if you’re Protestant, Catholic or atheist.

“For people who appropriate the Middle Ages for current uses, these are unhistorical exploitations of the truth. People who study ancient history, the Middle Ages, show how radically different and strange it is to call into question the normativeness of their own way of living in the modern world. Peter Brown, a very great historian who invented the study of the ancient world, used to begin his classes saying, ‘You have to understand that these ancient Christians are weird’.

It was the encounter of the alien other. To find out that their ancestors are not what they think they were gives them a whole different perspective. It gives them the ability to question their own ideas of what is modernity. It’s the different voice.”

The depth of devotion revealed by Nôtre Dame renders today’s secular western world a pale substitute. For reasons both good and bad, the religious order that held together western society has come adrift from its moorings. The current film Conclave shows a Roman Catholic Church overwhelmed by encroaching Islam. Once-Christian Syria has been overwhelmed by forces looking for re-establish the Caliphate. The religious right runs against the Democratic Party and its amoral values. Climate is now a new religion. Notre Dame is better known as a football team.

The onetime stronghold of Catholic faith in Quebec is now a secular experiment in replacing faith in God with faith in government. As one example, the premier Francois Legault wants to ban all praying in public. How’s this switch working out for them as the deluge of immigrants brought in by Justin Trudeau now threatens to wash away 400 years of their culture? The culture they thought they were defending when they allowed the native anglo culture to leave in 1970-1990s?

Speaking of the agnostic Trudeau, during his tenure as prime minister he’s leaned heavily into the unproven “murdered Rez children” narrative, casting blame on the religious institutions that ran some of the schools. (The schools were later run by government agencies led by his father Pierre, but Justin has hushed this part.)

Here’s Britannica spreading the half-truths and distortions of Trudeau-approved hate for religious orders. “Not only were Indigenous children physically and sexually abused at the schools, but also thousands of them died and were buried unceremoniously and anonymously—often the victims of malnutrition, fire, or disease spread rapidly through overcrowding.”

Since PMJT began his Rez campaign— there still have been no discoveries of mass graves or murdered children— approximately 115 churches in Canada have been burned, vandalized or desecrated without any arrests or convictions. The healthcare services that churches largely supplied (often for free) were transferred to the government single-payer system which is now drowning in debt and hopeless to serve the needs of people.

It’s always good replacement policy to have a backup plan when you dispose of your history. While much from the religious past has outlived its usefulness the gaping chasm of a postmodern future embraced by Trudeau and his ilk is hardly a substitute. Calling Nôtre Dame merely a gothic building is symptomatic of all that has been lost.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.

Up Next

Quebec Premier François Legault says he wants to ban public prayer in province

Don't Miss

Global Affairs Canada goes on real estate spending spree, taxpayers foot the bill

Bruce Dowbiggin

www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com

BRUCE DOWBIGGIN Award-winning Author and Broadcaster Bruce Dowbiggin's career is unmatched in Canada for its diversity and breadth of experience . He is currently the editor and publisher of Not The Public Broadcaster website and is also a contributor to SiriusXM Canada Talks. His new book Cap In Hand was released in the fall of 2018. Bruce's career has included successful stints in television, radio and print. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster for his work with CBC-TV, Mr. Dowbiggin is also the best-selling author of "Money Players" (finalist for the 2004 National Business Book Award) and two new books-- Ice Storm: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Vancouver Canucks Team Ever for Greystone Press and Grant Fuhr: Portrait of a Champion for Random House. His ground-breaking investigations into the life and times of Alan Eagleson led to his selection as the winner of the Gemini for Canada's top sportscaster in 1993 and again in 1996. This work earned him the reputation as one of Canada's top investigative journalists in any field. He was a featured columnist for the Calgary Herald (1998-2009) and the Globe & Mail (2009-2013) where his incisive style and wit on sports media and business won him many readers.

Follow Author

MLB’s Exploding Chequebook: Parity Is Now For Suckers

Bruce Dowbiggin / 6 days ago

From The Ashes: Faith, Not Fashion, Resurrected Notre Dame

Bruce Dowbiggin / 2 weeks ago

Don’t Fence Me In: Trump Soars, Trudeau Plummets, Canadians Melt Down

Bruce Dowbiggin

MLB’s Exploding Chequebook: Parity Is Now For Suckers

Published on December 17, 2024

Bruce Dowbiggin

MLB has seen parity and proclaimed, “We don’t give a damn!” Okay, they didn’t say that. In fact they insist the opposite is true. They’re all about competition and smaller markets getting a shot at a title. But as the 2024 offseason spending shows, believe none of what you hear and half of what you see in MLB.

Here’s the skinny: Juan Soto‘s contract with the NY Mets — 15 years and guaranteeing $765 million, not a penny of which is deferred. Max Fried signed an eight-year, $218 million deal with the New York Yankees. Later, Nathan Eovaldi secured a three-year, $75 million contract to return to the Texas Rangers. Blake Snell (five years, $182 million with the Los Angeles Dodgers) and Matthew Boyd (two years, $29 million with the Chicago Cubs) added to the splurge.

There’s one more thing that stands out. MLB has no trouble with the financial big boys in New York, Los Angles, Texas, Toronto, Atlanta and Chicago shelling out money no small market dare pay. In the MLB cheap seats, Tampa, Pittsburgh and Miami can’t send out quality players fast enough. But MLB is cool with that, too, as those paupers get a healthy slice of TV money.

So yes, they’re all about talking parity with their luxury tax system. But to keep the TV, digital, betting and marketing lucre flowing they have to have large media markets swinging the heaviest bats come postseason. The question is, do MLB fans care the way they used to about parity? It says here they don’t. More want to seed best-on-best more often. Which is brutal but refreshing.

Their sister leagues, married to draconian salary cap systems, are still pushing parity, even as they expand beyond recognition. In our 2004 book Money Players, legendary Boston Bruins coach/ GM Harry Sinden noted, “The problem with teams in the league, is that there were (then) 20 teams who all think they are going to win the Stanley Cup and they all are going to share it. But only one team is going to win it. The rest are chasing a rainbow.”

And that was before the expansion Vegas Golden Knights won a Cup within five years while the third-year Seattle Kraken made a run in those same 2023 playoffs. There are currently 32 teams in the league, each chasing Sinden’s rainbow of a Stanley Cup. That means 31 cranky fan bases every year. And 31 management teams trying to avoid getting fired.

Maybe we’ve reached peak franchise level? Uh, no. Not so long as salary-capped leagues can use the dream of parity to sell more franchises. As we wrote in October of 2023, “If you believe the innuendo coming from commissioner Gary Bettman there is a steady appetite for getting a piece of the NHL operation. “The best answer I can give you is that we have continuous expressions of interest from places like Houston, Atlanta, Quebec City, Salt Lake City, but expansion isn’t on the agenda.” In the next breath Bettman was predicting that any new teams will cost “A lot, a lot.”

Deputy commissioner Bill Daly echoed Bettman’s caution about a sudden expansion but added, ”Having said that, particularly with the success of the Vegas and Seattle expansions, there are more people who want to own professional hockey teams.” Translation: If the NHL can get a billion for a new team, the heck with competitive excellence, the clock might start ticking sooner. After all, small-market Ottawa just went for $950.”

It’s not just the expansion-obsessed NHL talking more teams. MLB is looking to add franchises. Abandoned Montreal is once more getting palpitations over rumours that the league wants to return to the city that lost its Expos in 2005. Recent reports indicate that while MLB might prefer Salt Lake City and Nashville it also feels it must right the wrong left when the Expos moved to Washington DC 19 years ago.

The city needs a new ballpark to replace disastrous Olympic Stadium. They’ll also need more than Tom Brady to fund the franchise fee and operating costs. And Quebec corporate support— always transitory in the Expos years— will need to be strong. But two more MLB franchises within five years is a lock.

While the NBA is mum on going past 30 teams it has not shut the door on expansion after seeing the NHL cashing in. Neither has the cash-generating monster known as the NFL where teams currently sell for over six billion US. The NFL is eyeing Europe for its next moves.

The question that has to be asked in this is, WTF, quality of competition? The more teams in a league the lower the chances of even getting to a semifinal series let alone a championship. Fans in cities starved for a championship— the NFL’s Detroit Lions or Cleveland Browns are entering their seventh decade without a title or the Toronto Maple Leafs title-less since 1967— know how corrosive it can be.

Getting to 34, 36, maybe 40 teams makes for a short-term score for owners, but it could leave leagues with an entire strata of loser teams that no one—least of all networks, carriers and advertisers—wants to see. Generations of fans will be like Canuck supporters, going their entire lives without a championship.

In addition, as we’ve argued in our 2018 book Cap In Hand: How Salary Caps Are Killing Pro Sports and How The Free Market Can Save Them, watering down the product with a lot of teams no one wants to watch nationally or globally seems counter productive. The move away from quality toward quantity serves only the gambling industry. But since when has Gary Bettman Truly cared about quality of the product? So long as he gets to say, “We have a trade to announce” at the Draft, he’s a happy guy.

When we published Cap In Hand we proposed a system like soccer with ranked divisions using promotion and relegation to ensure competition, not parity. Most of the interviewers we spoke to were skeptical of the idea. But as MLB steams closer to economic Darwinism our proposal is looking more credible every day. Play at the level you can afford. Or just watch Ted Lasso. Your choice.

Bruce Dowbiggin

Bordering On Legend: Why Josh Allen Is Hero to Two Nations

Published on December 9, 2024

Todayville

Headline: Josh Allen sets NFL mark with 3 TD passes and 3 TD runs, but Matthew Stafford’s Rams hold off Buffalo Bills 44-42

Canada has no NFL teams to its name. But different parts of the country have a fervent rooting interest in a team. Often it’s because of the local American markets that have been piped in by cable TV companies. The Lower Mainland of B.C. is fertile Seattle Seahawks territory. Alberta is partial to the Denver Broncos (owned for a long time by an Albertan). Manitoba and Saskatchewan get Detroit stations on their cable but are equally invested in the Minnesota Vikings.

In the East, Quebec and the Maritimes have plenty of New York Giants (older) and New England Patriots (Tom Brady) fandom. In southern Ontario, where the locals grew up on a diet of Buffalo TV icons Irv Weinstein and Tom Joles, there is little question that the Buffalo Bills are top of mind. As many as 20 percent of the crowd on game day comes south across the Peace Bridge. TSN and Sportsnet closely cover the Bills closely.

Not so long ago Rogers thought playing Bills games in Toronto might be a thing. For reasons ranging from ticket prices to the Bills ineptitude the gamble flopped. So they gave up the plan just as the franchise’s fortunes were to take a great leap forward in the name of quarterback Josh Allen, a raw talent from Wyoming, of all places. Opinions on whether his athletic ability and size (6-foot-5, 240 pounds) would translate in the NFL were many.

After all, while his QB rivals played in the Rose Bowl or the Orange Bowl, Allen had starred in the Great Idaho Potato Bowl. Using a pick obtained from Tampa, the Bills got him seventh in the loaded 2018 draft behind more heralded prospects Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold. He was considered the riskiest pick in the top seven. While none of the players taken before Allen have flopped, Mayfield and Arnold have wandered in the wilderness before finding success. Saquon Barkley has finally reached superstardom with a second team.

But not one of that septet has had quite the career arc of Allen. In just two years he took them to their first postseason since 1995. The next season he led them to the AFC Championship game where he lost to his future kryptonite, Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. During his Buffalo tenure, he has led the team to a total of six playoff appearances, five consecutive division titles, and five postseason victories. Only a Super Bowl trip has eluded him.

But statistics don’t capture Allen’s dual-threat impact on the NFL. He’s not been alone. In our in 2022 column NFL Run/ Pass Maestros: Can’t Catch This, we wrote about the move to more mobile, improvisational QBs . Players such as Allen, Mahomes and Lamar Jackson of Baltimore, the two-time NFL MVP. Stick-in-the-pockets like Jared Goff, Kirk Cousins and Matthews Stafford are still viable threats, but it’s clear that to stay one step ahead of defensive coordinators a QB needs the option of rolling out, isolating a defender and making him choose between the run or pass.

Where it was rare for QBs to gain more than a few years running it’s now common to see six or seven QBs in the Top 50 rushers in the NFL. Currently six QBs are in the Top 50 rushers in the league. But where the competition have been race cars, Allen has been a snow plow, going through, not around, defenders.

His feats of strength would impress George Costanza’s father. Week after week he makes single-handed plays that deliver the Bills victory. His weekly highlight reel of mad dashes and bazooka-liken throws had led the Bills to six straight wins before’s Sunday’s loss. Two weeks ago it was a hook-and-ladder TD lateral in the snow from teammate Amari Cooper in which he received credit for a TD pass and a TD reception on the same play. On Sunday in Los Angeles, he added 82 yards rushing to a mighty 342 yards passing.

This has led his fans to cover their eyes as he smashes into opponents or the turf. Bills fans know that their success is untranslatable without Allen, who’s now considered the favourite for MVP with four games left. Career backup Mitch Trubisky sits behind Allen, which is like Pete Buttigieg backing up Elon Musk.

Allen has been the beneficiary of the NFL taking the target off QBs as the 2020s dawned. “In act of mercy or perhaps to juice offence, the NFL took pity on the athletic QBs. ‘It feels like the NFL is in a moment when a defender can get called for roughing the passer or unnecessary roughness simply by breathing hard on the QB,” writes Joe Mahoney of SB Nation. “It’s a reason why the career longevity for running QBs like Lamar Jackson, Kyler Murray, Jalen Hurts, Justin Fields, Josh Allen, and Taysom Hill should be much longer the career lengths of some of the previous elite dual-threat QBs’”.

This was all written before Sunday’s epic personal offence total in a losing effort against the Rams— just the third defeat all season for the Bills. At one point they trailed by 17 before rallying to lose by just two.

Perhaps the only thing holding back Allen from a title now is the game strategy of HC Sean McDermott and the coaches of the Bills— as their fans know only too well since the last-second disaster against KC in the 2022 AFC final when McDermott couldn’t kill off 13 seconds at the end of the game. Allowing the Chiefs to come back for a win and a trip to the Super Bowl.

Sunday he and his OC Joe Brady wasted a time-out at the conclusion of a monumental comeback that prevented the Bills getting a shot at a game-winning field goal. It was not the first time the seventh-year head coach had muffed game-ending strategy this season. Losses to Houston and Baltimore also featured faulty game management. Otherwise the Bills might be undefeated in 2024.

But we won’t know for a month, at least, whether that’s enough of a drag on Superman’s cape to prevent a Super Bowl appearance. For now, Bills fans in Canada and the U.S. can only marvel at what’s happened to the farm boy from rural California who is both irresistible object and unstoppable force in the same body.