To rebuild or not to rebuild – that is the question. Following the devastating fire in the iconic architectural wonder and religious symbol our priorities as a society are on full display. In a world of desperate poverty, disease, pollution, refugee camps and the survivors of war is it moral to spend billions rebuilding Notre Dame? The answer should be an emphatic no but capitalism and the Catholic church have other ideas. However, if we only respond at this surface level seeing Notre Dame as an architectural and religious icon to be preserved we miss the point of the cathedral fire.

Notre Dame will most likely be rebuilt for economic reasons rather than religious ones. The billions in tourist dollars that Notre Dame brought in to Paris must be replaced so billions more must be spent on its reconstruction. The Catholic church is on of the largest corporations on earth and could fund the reconstruction without a thought by selling just a few of the cathedral’s priceless artifacts. It wants this massive monument to its wealth and power rebuilt, poverty be damned. An army of dedicated, unthinking parishioners, rich corporations and wealthy individuals from around the world have stepped up pledging billions of dollars towards the rebuild and that’s just the problem. Is this a prudent use of this money at this time in the world when there are much greater needs?

We have lost our sense of history in modern society. The Catholic church would rather we forgot about the fact that Notre Dame was a vanity project for a medieval bishop and was built in an era where the Catholic church and the monarchy were one and the same – wealthy, powerful, corrupt, debased and male who regularly pillaged the poor to build their great edifices with not so much as an after thought. They were part of 2% of the population that were fabulously wealthy and ruled the mostly illiterate and poverty-stricken 98% of peasants through the twin iron fists of faith and government. Ironically, these figures are the same under our current capitalist system worldwide. The monarchy built Versailles and its gardens and wasted billions more on their opulent indulgences during this five hundred year period nearly bankrupting France with wars and excess while the Catholic church looked on and participated with amusement. As Marie Antoinette famously quipped “Let them eat cake.” Every brick, stone cornice and piece of stained glass represents millions of people who died either directly or indirectly during the century-long construction of Notre Dame with money from public taxes and donations from individuals who could hardly afford them. Finally, Notre Dame was sacked during the French Revolution but survived to witness even more horrific events. It has been a reprehensible example of  corrupt church power for 850 years.

Notre Dame stood for everything that was grievously wrong with French society at the time. Equality, fraternity and liberty were not mere catchphrases of a band of ragged revolutionaries but the battle cry of the masses for freedom from tyranny and oppression. These words were intended to galvanize the people around the ideas of democracy. Unfortunately, the battle is still going on. Wealthy aristocrats have given way to rich industrialists and technocrats who now dictate our world.  Some would say that nothing has changed.  It was the same all over the world.

The Catholic church has unerringly continued its patriarchal dedication to the this male way of life and extreme wealth. The point of their mission is lost upon them. Their role is in pontificating to parishioners, building churches, supporting corrupt governments and in expanding the Catholic brand, not in giving any real succour to the poor or sharing their wealth with them. Their happiness is in the next life – the church’s is in this one.

Once again the rich have stepped up pledging billions to rebuild the cathedral. How many affordable homes could be built with the estimated $25B (in today’s dollars) spent on the original cathedral and others like it throughout Europe and England and with the current money already pledged. How much food could be distributed, how many people sheltered and clothed? Churches, monarchies and the wealthy are morally bankrupt and have lost their way. They have no right to speak on morality or democracy.

And finally, was Notre Dame insured? Were fire, heat, smoke detectors and fire suppression equipment installed? Or did the church have faith that god would preserve Notre Dame?

Perhaps rather than rebuilding the cathedral we should leave the ruins as they are as a tribute to the folly of mankind and the church and as a gravesite memorial to the dead that it represents and as an assertion that humanity and not god, popes, monarchs or the rich should rule the world.