The Whole Point is that rebuilding is not an option. If Notre Dame could be rebuilt, then it would not have been so precious. Does this really need pointing-out?
We can no more 'rebuild' Notre Dame than we can change our sex - but the fact that so many of us believe such nonsense is what we ought to be noticing.
A modern, 21st century, secular materialist Replica of the destroyed parts could, presumably, be constructed. But that which made the cathedral what it was has been destroyed - the Age of Faith love and supreme medieval craftsmanship... all that is gone.
And who would rebuild the Replica?
Perhaps the French State aided by the European Union, could raise the money by coercively extracting a few extra billions worth of taxes from the dwindling numbers of productive workers; then corruptly channelling some into their own pockets and more into political favours for cronies and a sliver into a politically correct version of what (for them) is merely a National Monument, an icon, a tourist attraction...?
Or the Roman Catholic Church - in a spirit of piety, using purely voluntary contributions and labour? Which of these options (or others) makes a difference to the reality of the final result. The real value of a putative Replica depends mainly on such considerations.
And why are we even discussing this before the smoke has cleared? Have we already forgotten that the crucial question of who set the fire, and the circumstance how it came to destroy so much of Notre Dame so quickly, has not 'yet' been answered...
But that this, one would have imagined, rather important matter is already off the agenda is probably answer enough. We already know that there never will be an honest answer. We already know as much of the truth as ever we will; and must each make up his mind on that basis.
Our official job now (according to those guardians of morality, the mass media) is miserably (or rejoicingly?) to accept what has happened, learn nothing from it; and allow it to amplify the already prevalent Western mood of hopelessness and despair.
After all, in a universe that is officially, compulsorily, both purposeless and meaningless - and therefore having nothing to do with human consciousness and desires - what else is there to do?
