Billionaires and corporate CEOs discovering their inner Jesus Christ is one of the more unedifying sights you will see, yet this is the sight we have been treated to over the sad plight to befall this internationally renowned landmark.
We learn that “Even before the smoke had cleared, luxury goods magnate Francois-Henri Pinault announced his family would donate 100 million euros ($112 million) to the effort [to rebuild Notre Dame]. Not to remain on the sidelines, his rival Bernard Arnault — the chief executive of LVMH and the richest man in Europe — pledged twice that amount on Tuesday morning. The Bettencourt Meyers family, which controls L’Oreal, quickly matched that pledge. And Patrick Pouyanne, chief of executive of French oil giant Total, offered another $112 million.”
Hurling an inconvenient truth into the midst of this gushing outpouring of billionaire and corporate largesse is Philippe Martinez, head of the France’s CGT trade union. Martinez makes the point that “If they can give tens of millions to rebuild Notre Dame, then they should stop telling us there is no money to help with the social emergency.”
Billionaires and global corporations are to the preservation of cultural heritage today what Attila the Hun was to tourism in his time.
By the way, Jesus, changing tack for a moment, was a revolutionary – indeed a communist before the word was invented.
When we have a situation in which more than a billion dollars is made readily available to rebuild a cathedral but nothing to rebuild broken countries, such as Syria, where countless churches and places of worship, located in some of the oldest Christian communities anywhere on the planet, were destroyed and desecrated by Salafi-jihadi hordes, it is time not only to press reset but to level a rage-filled j’accuse at Western governments, such as the French government.