Bruce Dowbiggin
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.
Show me good loser and I’ll show you a loser— Leo Durocher
There’s an expression that goes, you’re not allowed to die until all the people in your life have disappointed you. That trenchant observation is particularly relevant to those who woke up on April 29 to discover that their neighbours and friends in Canada have opted to give the federal Liberals (under new leader Mark Carney) another four years to continue Canada’s descent into irrelevance.
These are the same Liberals sans Carney who were polling in the low 20s six months earlier. Their cabinet members were quitting in droves. In the finest Wag The Dog tradition, a sure victory for Canada’s Conservatives was then transformed into a humiliating defeat that saw the Tories leader Pierre Poilievre lose the seat he’d represented for 20 years. The debate in the chattering classes now is how much was Poilievre’s fault?
In a minor vindication the Liberals were seemingly denied a majority by three seats (169-144) . How they balance that equation to advance their pet projects on trade, climate, gender, free speech, native rights and Donald Trump was unknowable Which is why the Grits have turned to dumpster diving MPs like Elizabeth May and keffiyeh-clad NDP to achieve a workable majority..
Suffice to say that neophyte Carney, without any support system within the Liberals, is being highly influenced by the Justin Trudeau faculty lounge left behind after the disgraced three-term PM slunk off into the night.
It’s not all beer and skittles. No sooner had the Liberal pixie dust settled than Carney was hit with Bloc leader Yves-Francois Blanchet announced unequivocally that energy pipelines were still a no-go in electrified Quebec. Alberta premier Danielle Smith lowered the requirement for a separation referendum from 600 K signatures to around 170 K— a very doable mark in pissed-off Alberta.
Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe outlined his demands on Carney if his province is not to join Alberta. And former British PM Tony Blair, who’d worked with Carney in the UK, announced that Carney’s pet project Net Zero was a loser for nations. Finally RBC revealed it was moving beyond diversity toward “inclusion” by removing “unconscious bias” among its upper ranks.
Such is the backwash from April 28. If you listened to the state-supported media on election night you might think that Trump had picked on poor, innocent friend next door Canada. His outrageous 51st state jest did send the Canadian political apparatus into panic. A Liberal party that proclaimed Canada a postmodern state with no real traditions (lowerering flags to half mast for six months to promote their Rez School genocide hustle) suddenly adopted the flag-waving ultra-patriotic visage of expatriate comedian Mike Myers.
Instead the commentariat was spitballing about how to make the House of Commons function more smoothly or if Carney should depart for Europe immediately or in a month to meet his true constituents in the EU commentariat. China? Wassat’? Urban crime? I can’t hear you. Canada as fentanyl capital of the West? Not interested.
Astonishingly, many people who should know better bought it. It was Boomers waking from a long nap to impose their cozy values one final time on the nation they’d created via Trudeau. Comfy ridings like Oakville, Burlington, North Vancouver, Ottawa Centre and Charlottetown mailed it in for another four years. Academic hotbeds like Western (London), Laurier (Kitchener), Waterloo, UNB (Fredericton), U Calgary (Confederation) Alberta (Strathcona) and UBC (Vancouver) also kept the radical dream alive.
Meanwhile shrieks of “Panic!” over Trump decimated the Bloc (22 seats) and the NDP (7 seats) with their support transferred to a banker-led party that had been poison to them only six months earlier. You could not have written a more supportive script for a party who had neglected the essentials in traditional Canada while pursuing radical policies to please the globalists of the West.
Speaking of time capsules, you’d have been hard-pressed to find a more retro scene than the one produced by the legacy TV networks. With their emphasis on the horse-race story the tone, the panels, the hosts could have easily been teleported from 1990s. While many were interested in the micro of government finance, most listeners were expecting maybe a word or two on the collapsed state exposed by Trump’s aggressive negotiating.
As we’ve mentioned often before, Canada’s allies are appalled by the takeover of the country by malign actors, drugs traffickers, money launderers, real-estate manipulators and Chinese subterfuge. Trump’s generic reference to the border was a catch-all for the corruption swallowing the election process and the finance of the country.
That avoidance was echoed by pollsters who spent the night talking about how the final figures reflected their findings. Except for those that didn’t— Conservatives vote tally over 41 percent and Liberals well under 200 seats. What was avoided was the cumulative effect of highly inflated Liberal polling during the campaign, the “why-bother?” narrative they sold to voters appalled by the Liberals manipulation of the process to switch leaders and hold a micro-campaign of 36 days.
While Donald Trump has announced he’ll work with Carney on tariffs, it’s still highly likely that this was the final Canadian election fought by the old rules where the have-nots (Atlantic Canada) the haves-but-outraged (Quebec) and the indolent (Ontario) control the math for making government. The money pump (Alberta, Saskatchewan) will seek to attract eastern BC and southern Manitoba to their crew. In the worst case Carney may be the nation’s final PM of ten provinces plus territories.
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. You can see all his books at brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
With all the Elbows Up election idiocy you can be forgiven for missing the news this past week that the trial of five former members of the 2018 men’s gold-medal winning Team Canada hockey team was declared a mistrial just a day into the proceedings. The five have all plead not guilty.
On Friday the judge ordered a new jury be empanelled after a half day of evidence in the trial of the players who are accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a hotel room in 2018 in London, Ont. Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia has not released the reasons she halted the trial. It comes after outrage over a civil settlement between the victim and Hockey Canada in 2020 forced authorities to pursue the criminal charges.
The graphic nature of the evidence so far promises dramatic testimony should the trial go its full length. Thoughts that one of the quintet might accept a plea deal to roll over on his former teammates— a goal of the police and prosecution— have so far been unrealized. It is expected that the victim will testify.
The low-profile start to the trial in the case is a contrast with the front-page treatment it received after excellent reporting from Katie Strang of The Athletic and Rick Westhead of TSN. At the time the charges were announced in 2024, Michael McLeod and Cal Foote were with the New Jersey Devils, Dillon Dubé was with the Calgary Flames and Carter Hart was with the Philadelphia Flyers. Alex Formenton had been signed by the Ottawa Senators but was playing in Switzerland.
The sensation was amplified by the role of Hockey Canada in the civil case, using funds to pay off the victim. Parliamentary hearings and front-page headlines added to the impact.
As we wrote in January of 2024, the hysteria encouraged the usual radicals to denigrate the national sport. “For the same reason that some think guns kill people, the toffs believe that hockey itself causes outbreaks of macho sexual behaviour. These people cheer for Sweden when it plays Canada because… Canadian hockey is just too down-market for them. Sweaty guys. Cold rinks. Meritocracy. Ick!
“We should clarify here that we mean men’s hockey. Womens’ hockey is not included in the loathing. In fact, metrosexuals from PM Justin Trudeau on down worship the wholesome new PWHL. Skippy recently gave a pep talk to the Ottawa players in their dressing room. Surprise. They lost.
“Players are married to rivals on other teams. Can you get more hip than that? Women’s hockey is nominally about winning; the real prize is equal pay for work of equal value. And the love of the Trudeau cabinet.
“But men’s hockey, with its crude meritocracy, must be shunned at all costs. Pediatric “experts” blame its emphasis on winning for causing kids to drop out.. So when the sordid tale of a 2018 multiple-sex allegation at a golf tournament arrived it warranted a hearing in the Commons, tut-tutting editorials by the score about the over-sexed nature of teenaged young hockey stars and multiple attempts to convict someone, anyone, for the act.
“That’s why the principals eventually pursued a civil case, where rules of evidence are less stringent. A civil case that Hockey Canada quickly paid off from a suspicious slush fund to end the ordeal for everyone. How’d that work out?
”Feminists and the non-binary set howled about this, but after the storm of outrage the media cycle disappeared from the public view. The 20 or so players on the 2018 Team Canada gold medal winners graduated into the NHL, and the league, which had no power to compel testimony nor a criminal charges to rely on, let them play.
“But pressure on police over the following months finally forced criminal charges. Butter cloak of secrecy prevailed. This was highly unsatisfactory. Who was under suspicion? Who was innocent? Player agents and lawyers kept their charges from self-incrimination at all costs.
“How will it end? Will there be convictions or will deals be done? In this time where social-media truths are fungible and Woke causes are paramount no one should hazard a guess. But one thing that will get an airing is the charge that hockey created this climate of sexual permissiveness. The sport must be condemned when its participants break the law.
You think that hockey caused this? That it doesn’t happen in the world of millionaire basketball or football or baseball players? Guess again. Cleveland Browns QB DeShaun Watson faced 24 sexual assault accusations. One former NBA player had seven children by six different women. Former MLB pitcher Trevor Bauer faced sexual assault charges from an alleged assault at his home.
How about the stories of young women who, like the young women pursuing athletes, went backstage at concerts and shows for a rendezvous with a famous rock star like Steven Tyler or Axl Rose and got more than they bargained for.
Or those who tried to climb the political or corporate ladder by submitting to power figures? Hello, Kamala Harris. This case is about power, stardom, privilege and exploitation. Ugly, yes. Life-wrecking for some. But trying to pigeon-hole hockey as the unique engineer of the tragedy is ignorant and irresponsible. “
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. You can see all his books at brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
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