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Bells of Notre Dame Cathedral ring in streets of Paris for first time since 2019 fire

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

The bells of Notre Dame Cathedral have been heard in the streets of Paris for the first time since the devastating fire in 2019.  

On November 8, the eight bells of the Notre Dame Cathedral finally rang in Paris following five years of restoration after the devastating 2019 fire that destroyed the historic church, according to AFP reporters.  

 

“This is a beautiful, important and symbolic step,” Philippe Jost, head of the public body tasked with restoring the cathedral, said.

The restoration of the cathedral’s bells marks a significant moment in French history after the beloved church was destroyed by a fire on April 15, 2019. As the fire raged, Parisians stood on the street watching the cathedral burn, many of whom saw the fire as a symbol of destruction of society and culture.  

The Cathedral itself was a symbol of France’s rich Catholic history which is inseparable from French culture. The gothic church, filled with detailed art and majestic architecture, survived the French revolution, which destroyed hundreds of churches as the country attempted to wipe out Catholic influence.

Following the 2019 fire, many Catholics saw the destruction as a sign.

Bishop Athanasius Schneider viewed the fire as a “symbolic and evocative” sign of the “spiritual conflagration” that has attacked Catholicism in recent decades. 

Similarly, Cardinal Raymond Burke described the fire as a “sobering reflection” on the “attacks upon the infinite beauty of the faith by the grievous sins and crimes of our day.”

“Represents the end of a dark era,” one user wrote. “The symbolism is clear.” 

“In Catholic theology, church bells are blessed by priests to serve as audible exorcisms of local demons,” Catholic commentator Dr. Taylor Marshall wrote. 

 

“The bells of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris just began ringing again… just in time,” he added.

Notre Dame Cathedral is scheduled to formally reopen on December 8, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady.

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Up to $41 billion in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for, Oxfam finds

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News release from Oxfam International

Up to $41 billion in World Bank climate finance —nearly 40 percent of all climate funds disbursed by the Bank over the past seven years— is unaccounted for due to poor record-keeping practices, reveals a new Oxfam report.

An Oxfam audit of the World Bank’s 2017-2023 climate finance portfolio found that between $24 billion and $41 billion in climate finance went unaccounted for between the time projects were approved and when they closed.

There is no clear public record showing where this money went or how it was used, which makes any assessment of its impacts impossible. It also remains unclear whether these funds were even spent on climate-related initiatives intended to help low- and middle-income countries protect people from the impacts of the climate crisis and invest in clean energy.

“The Bank is quick to brag about its climate finance billions —but these numbers are based on what it plans to spend, not on what it actually spends once a project gets rolling,” said Kate Donald, Head of Oxfam International’s Washington D.C. Office. “This is like asking your doctor to assess your diet only by looking at your grocery list, without ever checking what actually ends up in your fridge.”

The Bank is the largest multilateral provider of climate finance, accounting for 52 percent of the total flow from all multilateral development banks combined.

The issue of climate finance will take center stage at this year’s COP in Azerbaijan, where countries are set to negotiate a new global climate finance goal, the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). Climate activists are demanding the Global North provide at least $5 trillion a year in public finance to the Global South “as a down payment towards their climate debt” to the countries, people and communities of the Global South who are the least responsible for climate breakdown but are the most affected. Oxfam warns that the lack of traceable spending could undermine trust in global climate finance efforts at this critical juncture.

“Climate finance is scarce, and yes, we know it’s hard to deliver. But not tracking how or where the money actually gets spent? That’s not just some bureaucratic oversight —it’s a fundamental breach of trust that risks derailing the progress we need to make at COP this year. The Bank needs to act like our future depends on tackling the climate crisis, because it does,” said Donald.

Oxfam’s investigation revealed that obtaining even basic information on how the World Bank is using climate finance was painstaking and difficult.

“We had to sift through layers of complex and incomplete reports, and even then, the data was full of gaps and inconsistencies. The fact that this information is so hard to access and understand is alarming —it shouldn’t take a team of professional researchers to figure out how billions of dollars meant for climate action are being spent. This should be transparent and accessible to everyone, most importantly communities who are meant to benefit from climate finance,” said Donald.

Notes to editors

Download Oxfam’s new report “Climate Finance Unchecked.”

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Daily Caller

Trump Is Back And Foreign Leaders Are Taking Notice

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

By Morgan Murphy

That didn’t take long.

Less than a week after the landslide election of former President Donald J. Trump, America’s enemies are running for cover.

A Hamas spokesman told Newsweek it seeks an immediate end to the war.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin remarked to reporters that Trump’s desire to end the Ukraine crisis “deserves attention at least.”

China’s Xi Jinping congratulated Trump on Thursday, expressing the pair would “find the right way to get along in the new era.”

World leaders know that the past four years of U.S. dithering, insecurity, and shame are over.

America is back with the gusto of a “USA, USA!” chant.

The world sees exactly what a majority of Americans see in their president-elect: strength.

“His behavior at the moment of an attempt on his life left an impression on me. He turned out to be a brave man,” Vladimir Putin said.

Damn right.

It is a fact as old as human nature that strength, bravery and resolve create peace. Weakness invites war.

We’ve lived the latter half of that adage for the past four years.

Madam vice president thought her boss was “capable in every way,” and willfully ignored President Joe Biden’s declining faculties as he struggled to climb the stairs of Air Force One, remember the names of other world leaders or stay awake during global summits.

The Biden-Harris administration shamed the nation with its disgraceful retreat from Afghanistan. After the world watched that fiasco, deterrence collapsed like a Dollar-General beach chair under Chris Christy. Enter, stage left, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Chinese spy balloons and a Middle East in flames.

Is it any wonder that military recruiting dropped under Biden, our enemies began moving pawns across the chessboard and America’s trust in its military plummeted to the lowest point in decades?

Trump’s new national security team will inherit a Middle East engulfed in violence, China marching towards Taiwan and the largest war in Europe since 1945.

The first order of business? A return to the Trump 1.0 policies that worked.

That is bad news for host of malign actors, but at the top of the list likely sits Iran and its proxies. The mullahs are probably regretting their plot to assassinate Trump.

Expect Trump’s legendary “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran to snap back in place. That plan drained billions from their despotic death cult. Sign number one: recent reports say the maximum pressure campaign architect, Brian Hook, will lead the transition team at the U.S. Department of State.

On Friday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin called a meeting of all political appointees at the Pentagon — let’s hope they simply discussed the orderly and lawful transfer of power and authorities and not ways to stymie the incoming administration.

With two months of Biden remaining at the helm, most Americans are holding their breath that he won’t stumble the nation into yet another conflict before leaving the Oval Office for good.

Morgan Murphy is military thought leader, former press secretary to the Secretary of Defense and national security advisor in the U.S. Senate.

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