You can admire the art and the dedication of the builders without being religious. France itself is a secular state with a division of the State and the Church, and yet President Macron is there, because Notre Dame is a national treasure, not just a religious one.
Also, don't kid yourself about the history of the Church and money. While always verbally pro-poor, in practice, it also always sought connections among the rich. Obscene riches of the high clergy were one of the triggers for the Reformation.
Plus ca change...
Many flawed people belong to the Church. But the art of the Church does not belong to any individual. It exists to honor and glorify the Triune God from within material creation.
Bishop: "my colleagues have been trying for 1800 years and haven't succeeded."
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/06/us/politics/trump-elon-mu...
True liberalism is a church opening its doors to anyone desiring to come in, and someone able to appreciate and pray as he desires. Freedom of religion. Musk might not be a "fervent Catholic", but is that really even relevant in celebrating the restoration of one of the greatest cathedrals?
Identity politics like this truly waste all of our times and turn what are simple moments of happiness into artificial problems.
My invite got lost in the mail, I guess. Or maybe the criteria wasn't just "anyone desiring to come in".
In fact, consider that Prince William is also present. He's a member of the British royal family and heir-apparent to the British throne. The British monarch is also the head of the Church of England, which is a friendly rival to the Catholic Church.
It is pointless to argue for identity politics, only assholes wanting to cause strife do that. Let us not waste our time and happiness on them and that.
I honestly don't know since I am not interested in celebrities let alone what they do in their private times. I just rattled her off as the first thing to come to my mind for a recently popular western celebrity.
>Any random catholic who wants to be there is a better choice
Again, this was a party for the powerful and rich. This was an opportunity for France and the Church to bolster its political and diplomatic capitals. You need powerful and rich people to come down for that.
>than these neoaristocratic freaks.
Occupy Wall Street was 13 years ago, that kind of sentiment didn't lead to anything constructive then and it's not going to now either.
I only say this because you're not really supposed to be selling seats to a Mass. St Peters for example all masses are public. There are tickets but these are free if it's expected to be large.
“Not really supposed to be” in the sense of “it is a crime under canon law (Canon 1380) for both the seller and buyer punishable by a wide range of sanctions, including interdict and, for someone in orders and/or holding church office, suspension.”
The rebuild fund donars arguably had no expectation of invitations when they put put up cash many years back to fund the rebuild.
It was reported that the block of French Luxury goods companies that put in over $500 million even went so far as to not claim that contribution as a tax break.
( https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/salma-hayek-billionair... )
So they put in money, but not for tickets and some didn't even use it as a tax break.