Luckily the Devil is well alive

Watching Notre Dame engulfed in flames was shocking and I certainly was deeply affected.
Less than 24 hours later, as over a billion dollar had already been donated by individuals, and as the French President announced on TV that the bells of ND would ring again in 5 years, I entered another state of shock.
How could the burning of such a monument bring so much passion and empathy and cash, when the 12th century city of Aleppo, World Heritage in Syria, almost completely destroyed under American bombing 5 years ago, has hardly started reconstruction because the first million dollar has not yet arrived!
Why hundreds of other historical sites over the world, from Afganisthan to Lebanon, as ancient and monumental as the Paris Cathedral, are facing such indifference? Why the world mobilise on unprecedented scale when 9 people are killed by a terrorist in Paris, New York or London, but the genocide of an entire population in the Middle East or the starvation of millions in Africa are not enough to even make it to the headline?
I visited Notre Dame a few years ago for the last time, and I certainly remember the outrageous beauty of it. But I also remember how sad I felt seeing those millions of tourists flocking in with their cameras, most of them not remotely connected with what this place essentially has to offer.
As I tried to make abstraction of the blood that thousands of women shed as they were burned alive in that Cathedral, as I struggled to forget the tortures and unimaginable suffering that took place there under the umbrella of the Catholic Church, I walked away with a churning stomach.
Last night again, the archbishop of ND de Paris was life on TV at prime time, and in between a few tears he had the guts to ask “ We trust in God, but I don’t understand why this happened to us, and why now”.
Again I chuckled. What about the millions of kids victim of sexual abuse and whose lives have been destroyed? What about the extraordinary cover up on the paedophilia ring in the Catholic Church? What about Lyon’s Archbishop Philippe Barbarin, who was found guilty by a French court earlier this month, but whose resignation was refused by Pope Francis?
What about this planet, the only Cathedral we have, and the unprecedented crises it is facing? As the global scientific community is warning of a 40 % chance of human extinction before the end of this century, and that the number one issue facing planet earth today is overpopulation, the Catholic Church goes on demonising even condoms…
Pope Francis made it clear last month that the Church is not responsible for the sexual abuses, and obviously for this fire also he won’t feel responsible.
Luckily the Devil is well alive.

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And …
Every cathedral will burn and be rebuilt, and then one day be gone forever.
Every living being will go through birth and the challenges of life, through diseases and accidents, will pick himself up, stand again, and then one day be gone forever.
Every planet, every galaxy, every black hole will go through the same process, in its own way, its own timing.
As cruel as it may seem
Impermanence is the nature of all
Remembering this is the only freedom