The great silence of Notre-Dame’s clergy

“The roof woodwork, the woodwork, I’m a bit fed up with the woodwork, it’s all anyone ever talks about,” grumbled Priest Henry de Villefranche, canon of Notre-Dame. Does he mean there has been too little talk of God in the years of work that followed the fire on April 15, 2019? “For the past two years, we’ve been hearing too little about interesting things and too much about this construction site, which is constantly being described as ‘extraordinary.’ That’s a big exaggeration. This story about the statue of the Virgin Mary having miraculously escaped, it’s all nonsense. Apart from the altar, virtually the entire interior of the nave escaped the fire. The only damage to the choir organ was caused by the firefighters’ water. A lot of dust was deposited everywhere, but virtually nothing was touched. This idea of a lasting miracle needs to be demythologized.”

And return to transcendence? Since the fire, there has been little heard from the clergy in the face of a government that likes to point out at every opportunity that Notre-Dame is France, that the walls are its responsibility and that the cathedral is as much a tourist attraction as a spiritual temple. In short, that God isn’t in charge here.

The day after the disaster, observers were already asking: Where are the Roman collars and cassocks? Michel Aupetit, archbishop of Paris at the time, has a reputation for preferring, despite his conservative moral views, to play the songs of Georges Brassens on his guitar rather than attend official dinners. One of the vicars general, Benoist de Sinety, was asked to make up for these absences, but the climate between the two men was abrasive, and the vicar was soon exiled from Paris. The priests of Notre-Dame maintained the same cacophony. On Rue Chanoinesse, their headquarters on the Ile de la Cité in the 4^th arrondissement, daggers were drawn behind the facade of politeness. The mild-mannered rector, Patrick Chauvet, is said to be more adept at choosing camera angles than at marshaling a crew in a storm.

When, in December 2021, the archbishop was forced to resign (accused in The Point of having had an “intimate relationship with a woman,” Michel Aupetit denied any moral wrongdoing but admitted it was an unfortunate situation).

His successor, Laurent Ulrich, took over the reins. His first, highly symbolic gesture on arriving from Lille, where he had been officiating until then, was to be taken by car to the cathedral forecourt. He quickly transferred the parish priest from Notre-Dame to the Madeleine church, and appointed an ambitious man in his place, Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, former spokesman for the French Bishops’ Conference. Except for Canon de Villefranche, the entire ecclesiastical team on the Ile de la Cité has been replaced since the fire.

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