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April 24, 2019

Why Post-Catholic France Mourned for Notre Dame

For nonbelievers, objects and traditions bound up with religious belief are a substitute for belief itself.

The burning last week of Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral stirred the emotions of people the world over, and Catholics especially, but the French, regardless of religious commitment, seemed to feel the loss most deeply. Examining this reaction in light of evidence of the rapid decline of Christianity in France, Christopher Caldwell writes:

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