From The Ashes: Faith, Not Fashion, Resurrected Notre Dame

This past weekend, leaders from across the world— and Donald Trump— descended on Paris for the re-christening of Nôtre Dame cathedral which was nearly destroyed by fire in 2019. Most, if not all, decided that the restoration had been brilliant.

Typical of the reaction was a largely respectful CBS News 60 Minutes segment describing the process of restoring Notre Dame. In finishing the work in five years the workers had “made possible the unthinkable.” Yet 60 Minutes failed to talk about the religious meaning of Nôtre Dame to Parisians. Like so many, 60 Minutes considers it a gothic landmark more than a Catholic place of worship.

Which is like describing the Smithsonian as a storage shed. Yes, the fire was the near-extinction of an an architectural marvel, a tourist icon, a movie setting. But for many the building was the personification of a people’s faith, their craftsmanship and their Catholic traditions throughout the Middle Ages and into the present. It was their past and their future under the protection of the Virgin Mary.

A squat Romanesque church had stood on the Île de la Cité site since around the year 500 AD. The restored version we know today, with its use of the rib vault and flying buttress, its enormous rose windows, and the abundance of its sculptural decoration, was started in 1163 and was altered periodically over the centuries. (The famous tower was a nineteenth-century addition.) Work was done by generations united in their Catholic faith and in the power of the emerging French state.

Anonymous people spent lifetimes toiling on Nôtre Dame without ever witnessing the completion of their work. And still the master masons, draughtsmen and carpenters saw through their commitment. They worshipped the idea of a Gothic world reaching into the sky to be closer to God. While people perished from war, famine and plague over the centuries, and the French Revolution of 1780 stripped Nôtre Dame of its status as a church for a quarter century, there was money and energy still found to complete this astonishing church.

What inspiration compelled people in the Middle Ages to these heights in an era that people today dismiss as a dark hole in history? It might have been civic pride, outdoing the great French cathedrals at Rennes, Soissons, Cluny and Reims. It might have been the vanity of French kings and bishops. It was certainly devotion to a higher order.

What it was not, says Fr. Augustine Thompson, the current President of the Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies at St. Michael’s College in Toronto, was the values that modern people like CBS News have attached to Nôtre Dame as it climbed into the sky above Paris. Those values defy simplified contemporary explanations. “What you say about the Middle Ages Is affected not at all if you’re Protestant, Catholic or atheist.

“For people who appropriate the Middle Ages for current uses, these are unhistorical exploitations of the truth. People who study ancient history, the Middle Ages, show how radically different and strange it is to call into question the normativeness of their own way of living in the modern world. Peter Brown, a very great historian who invented the study of the ancient world, used to begin his classes saying, ‘You have to understand that these ancient Christians are weird’.

It was the encounter of the alien other. To find out that their ancestors are not what they think they were gives them a whole different perspective. It gives them the ability to question their own ideas of what is modernity. It’s the different voice.”

The depth of devotion revealed by Nôtre Dame renders today’s secular western world a pale substitute. For reasons both good and bad, the religious order that held together western society has come adrift from its moorings. The current film Conclave shows a Roman Catholic Church overwhelmed by encroaching Islam. Once-Christian Syria has been overwhelmed by forces looking for re-establish the Caliphate. The religious right runs against the Democratic Party and its amoral values. Climate is now a new religion. Notre Dame is better known as a football team.

The onetime stronghold of Catholic faith in Quebec is now a secular experiment in replacing faith in God with faith in government. As one example, the premier Francois Legault wants to ban all praying in public. How’s this switch working out for them as the deluge of immigrants brought in by Justin Trudeau now threatens to wash away 400 years of their culture? The culture they thought they were defending when they allowed the native anglo culture to leave in 1970-1990s?

Speaking of the agnostic Trudeau, during his tenure as prime minister he’s leaned heavily into the unproven “murdered Rez children” narrative, casting blame on the religious institutions that ran some of the schools. (The schools were later run by government agencies led by his father Pierre, but Justin has hushed this part.)

Here’s Britannica spreading the half-truths and distortions of Trudeau-approved hate for religious orders. “Not only were Indigenous children physically and sexually abused at the schools, but also thousands of them died and were buried unceremoniously and anonymously—often the victims of malnutrition, fire, or disease spread rapidly through overcrowding.”

Since PMJT began his Rez campaign— there still have been no discoveries of mass graves or murdered children— approximately 115 churches in Canada have been burned, vandalized or desecrated without any arrests or convictions. The healthcare services that churches largely supplied (often for free) were transferred to the government single-payer system which is now drowning in debt and hopeless to serve the needs of people.

It’s always good replacement policy to have a backup plan when you dispose of your history. While much from the religious past has outlived its usefulness the gaping chasm of a postmodern future embraced by Trudeau and his ilk is hardly a substitute. Calling Nôtre Dame merely a gothic building is symptomatic of all that has been lost.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.

Up Next

Quebec Premier François Legault says he wants to ban public prayer in province

Don't Miss

Global Affairs Canada goes on real estate spending spree, taxpayers foot the bill

Bruce Dowbiggin

www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com

BRUCE DOWBIGGIN Award-winning Author and Broadcaster Bruce Dowbiggin's career is unmatched in Canada for its diversity and breadth of experience . He is currently the editor and publisher of Not The Public Broadcaster website and is also a contributor to SiriusXM Canada Talks. His new book Cap In Hand was released in the fall of 2018. Bruce's career has included successful stints in television, radio and print. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster for his work with CBC-TV, Mr. Dowbiggin is also the best-selling author of "Money Players" (finalist for the 2004 National Business Book Award) and two new books-- Ice Storm: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Vancouver Canucks Team Ever for Greystone Press and Grant Fuhr: Portrait of a Champion for Random House. His ground-breaking investigations into the life and times of Alan Eagleson led to his selection as the winner of the Gemini for Canada's top sportscaster in 1993 and again in 1996. This work earned him the reputation as one of Canada's top investigative journalists in any field. He was a featured columnist for the Calgary Herald (1998-2009) and the Globe & Mail (2009-2013) where his incisive style and wit on sports media and business won him many readers.

Follow Author

Brokeback President: We Can’t Quit You, Donald

Bruce Dowbiggin / 2 weeks ago

Elbows Up Part Deux: Liberal Canada Now Riding The Blue Jays

Alberta / 3 weeks ago

In Federal vs Provincial Battles, Ontario In No Longer A Great Ally For Alberta

Bruce Dowbiggin

Brokeback President: We Can’t Quit You, Donald

Published on October 17, 2025

Bruce Dowbiggin

There’s a truism that the real world bears no resemblance to the worlds we imagine in our heads. From far-right patriots stockpiling guns in the mountains of Wyoming to unhinged antifa voidoids shouting “Nazi” at the McGill quad, the real world offers no resemblance to the ones they’re demonizing. The same goes for centre-middle voters who still watch the network 6 PM news or the wolves on Wall Street creating a new equity bubble..

Their assumptions are based on narratives created with themselves at the centre of an epic national struggle. In Canada, for instance, the only constants in the consciousness have been hockey and the equalization scheme. In the U.S. honouring Old Glory and the constitution is a stronger bond, but the national myth is still diffuse. Rarely have the two nations shared an animating principle.

Until this moment. Now there is a central force at work on both sides of the border. A core issue so deep and dangerous that all agree it forms the heart of their current existence. We speak, of course, of Donald J. Trump, the 45/47 POTUS. For better or worse, the cult of the Donald forms the seminal belief system in both America and Canada. He is, in the words of Mark Carney, transformational.

The reasons are not the same. For the Left Trump is the vulgar partisan leading America to ruin and perhaps civil war, For the Right he is the avenger, the fearless force for goodness who will restore America to greatness. Both sides laugh at him. For the Left it’s a derisive cackle. For the Right, it’s an affectionate chortle.

But neither side dares ignore him at the moment. Some might say, what about Obama? Wasn’t he a transforming force in his 2008-2016 presidency? Actually Obama’s overwhelming privilege in the absence of accomplishment is the reason Trump has ascended to this status. After the former leader of the Choom Gang in Hawaii had his pals curb-stomp Mitt Romney in 2012 the Right sought someone who fought dirty, too. Who’d punch back.

And they got him in Trump, who has perfected the intervention method used by Blake, the brutal salesman manager in Glengarry Glen Ross. Raw, unsparing, unforgiving. “Put that coffee down! Coffee’s for closers only. You think I’m fucking with you? I am not fucking with you! I’m here from downtown. I’m here from Mitch and Murray. And I’m here on a mission of mercy. Your name’s Levine? You call yourself a salesman, you son of a bitch?

Dave Moss: I don’t gotta sit here and listen to this shit.

Blake: You certainly don’t, pal, ’cause the good news is… you’re fired. The bad news is… you’ve got, all of you’ve got, just one week to regain your jobs starting with tonight.”

Like Trump, Blake flaunts his wealth. “This watch costs more than your car. I made $970,000 in sales commissions last year. How much you make? You see, pal, that’s who I am, and you’re nothing.”

He’s unapologetic. “I came here because Mitch and Murray asked me to. They asked me for a favour. I said the real favour, follow my advice and fire your fucking ass, because a loser is a loser!” His rude style has ended the Obama era for good.

In the wake of crushing Hamas he has rendered America’s progressive Left a stammering shell of its former self. Its Boomer demo is dazed, and its radical Left is talking insurrection. They tried to shoot him (twice), they tried to jail him. They tried to impeach him. They tried to link him to Jeffery Epstein. He was undeterred. Came back stronger as president in 2024. You may not like it, but those are the facts.

If America has a Trump fixation, it’s no less toxic in Canada where his intervention in the 2025 federal election shattered the polite conceits Canadians live with. He grabbed Trudeau by his fashionable lapels and hissed, “You’re a nice guy? I don’t give a shit. Good father? Fuck you! Go home and play with your kids. You wanna work here? Close!”

In America, this straight talk created a debate on its future. Faced with the same raw assessments of their nation as no better than a 51st state, Canadians rejected Trump’ and elected the nostalgia party of Mark Carney, flown in at the last minute to bury Trudeau’s mess. Assisted by their purchased media the Liberals avoided all talk of the country’s perilous finances, indigenous claims and separation threats. And ran on Trump.

Not much has changed since. Canadians eager to avoid self assessment have boycotted U.S. alcohol and travel. Their Laurentian elites— who months before considered their country a genocidal state— now paint rosy portraits of their land. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s critical style is demeaned. All because of Trump.

Meanwhile, Carney’s Liberals gave Stellantis about $15 billion for EV battery production but failed to secure any guarantees. Stellantis now will cease plans for Jeep Compass production originally slated for Brampton Ontario, and relocate their operations to Illinois. Ontario premier Doug Ford is blaming Trump.

In spite of the repeated blows to the economy, Trump’s role as whipping boy remains unshakeable in Canada nine months after the election. We would like to say you can only blame Trump for so long. Surely the impending $100B deficit budget and talk of Alberta/ Quebec cession will stir some to stop blaming the man staging the intervention and look at themselves.

But this being Canada you’d probably be wasting your breath. Already there is talk of a snap winter election to restore the Liberal majority before the NDP choose a new leader. The bot world keeps ignoring the flames while saying what a lovely fireplace! After urging Palestinian statehood Carney scurries to the Hamas ceasefire ceremony where Trump calls him “president”.

You can’t make this stuff up, But until reality destroys the fantasy worlds in his opponents’ heads expect Blake to knock on the door to announce, “We’re adding a little something to this month’s sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac El Dorado. Anyone wanna see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired. Get the picture?”

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.

Bruce Dowbiggin

Long-Distance Field Goals Have Flipped The Field. Will The NFL Panic?

Published on October 14, 2025

Todayville

It is a day that lives in infamy for Buffalo Bills fans. Jan. 27, 1991, with Buffalo against the New York Giants in Super Bowl XXV. Behind 20-19 with eight seconds left, Scott Norwood, a former All-Pro, attempted a 47-yard game-winning field goal. The kick was, in the immortal words of Al Michaels, wide right.

In the days of the Bills’ four consecutive losing trips to the Super Bowl a 47-yard field goal was within the range of an All Pro kicker. Still it was considered anything but automatic. And kicks of over 50 yards were moon shots with a high degree of failure. Sixty yards? Please, don’t make us laugh.

But as anyone watching field goals in the NFL and CFL can attest the distance barrier has been shattered. NFL kickers are making 72.5 percent of field goals from at least 50 yards. Four kicks have been made from at least 60 yards — one shy of the single-season record. Tampa Bay’s Chase McLaughlin hit a 65 yarder against Philadelphia in Week 4, one yard short of Justin Tucker’s record set in 2021.

Last Sunday Evan McPherson of Baltimore hit a 67-yarder that was wiped out by a late timeout called by Green Bay’ HC Matt LaFleur. (Jacksonville Jaguars kicker Cam Little hit a 70-yard field goal, but it was in preseason and not an official record.)

What makes this onslaught more interesting is that the record for longest FG in the NFL had stood 43 years from Tom Dempsey’s game-winning 63-yarder in 1970 against Detroit for New Orleans. (Dempsey, who has no toes on his right foot wore a special kicking boot.) It took Matt Prater and the light air of Denver to establish a 64 yarder on December 8, 2013. Since then it’s been bombs away.

Dallas’ Brandon Aubrey is the current king of effortless distance, regularly pounding them through from over 60. Many expect him to break the 70-yard mark. (Airlines have movies on flights that long.) No wonder then that the NFL has set records in each of the last four seasons for 50-yard field goals. The total of 195 in 2024 was double the total from every NFL season until 2015.

The combination of distance training plus a few new rules has revolutionized game strategy in today’s game. With the so-called Dynamic kickoff rules forcing more returns, teams are regularly starting drives at the 35- or 40-yard line. In late-game situations top quarterbacks like Buffalo’s Josh Allen or Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes need to get only a couple of first downs to get in the range of their kickers.

Now, a TD with under a minute left is not the death sentence for teams with one of the better kickers— as Bills fans will remember from their crushing loss in the AFC championship game to the Chiefs in 2022. The game featured 25 points scored in the final two minutes of regulation. The Chiefs took just 11 seconds to get to Harrison’s Butker’s range for a tying 47-yard field goal, then won in overtime.

Once the kicker played another position. Today they are specialists. The science of kicking has also improved with a plethora of kicking camps and coaches springing up to train the latest generation of long-distance drivers of the ball. With only 30 jobs in the NFL the competition is fierce, and only the very best get even a look at the pros, let alone s job. But with the money paid to a steady kicker there are thousands each year refining their craft and strengthening their techniques to get a sniff.

Another innovation improving distance was the league allowing teams to prepare their own kicking balls for games. Now they receive a supply of 60 game balls before the season to use in games. 49ers kicker Eddy Pineiro estimates the broken-in balls add maybe three or four yards to the distance on kicks. The rules stipulate that no artificial heating, stretching or inflating are allowed but Jets kicker, veteran Nick Folk, says that it gives him. Comfort zone.

“We get to kind of do just like quarterbacks get whatever they want to do to the ball, as long as it looks like a football and the logo’s still there and all that stuff,” Folk told AP. “I think they’re pretty lenient with that. It’s a very welcoming thing to be able to kind of look at a ball and be like: ‘All right, I want to kick this one this week, I want to kick this one this week.’”

In the CFL the place-kicking game is about to get a big shock as the league moves goal posts from the goal line to the back of the new, smaller end zones. Kickers will now be forced to kick much further for three points, while offences will play on a smaller field that requires more emphasis on TDs.

Paul McCallum stroked a 63-yard to set the league’s record, and like the NFL, CFL kickers are constantly pushing their range in a league with only one indoor surface. Unlike the NFL, the CFL allows PKers to use a tee. Suffice to say the reconfigured field will take getting used to. (Already traditionalists are fuming.) At least we don’t have the rouge on missed FGs to kick around any more.

For now the quest for a 70-yard field goal continues. The question will be how does the NFL react to re-balance the field’s dynamics to protect the integrity of scoring.