Roberto de Mattei
The Syrian revolution appears to be a new tile of that piecemeal Third World War which is the new world disorder. The globalisation of chaos has in fact taken a new step forward with the disturbing scenario that opens up after the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime. What is striking first of all is the lightning-fast nature of the event. In eleven days, a group of rebels — considered irrelevant until now — has taken control of Aleppo, marched on Damascus and, without meeting resistance, conquered Syria, marking the end of fifty years of Assad family rule.
The second startling element is the chaotic political tangle that the situation presents. There are no “good guys” and “bad guys”. On one side there is a dictator whose hands are dripping with blood, as confirmed by the horrific images of the dungeons of the Sednaya prison; on the other side, a group of jihadist militants headed by Abu Mohammed al-expand his “neo-Ottoman” empire to the East and West. In this respect also, any optimism is out of place.
Some conspiracy theorists swear that behind al-Julani’s victory is the hand of Israel and the United States, with the intent of weakening, as has in fact happened, the Russia–Syria–Iran “axis of evil”. Others see the events in Syria as the outcome of a strategic agreement reached on 7 December in Doha. With this, the tsar of the Kremlin is viewed as having freed himself from a useless burden and having handed Syria over to the Turkish sultan, while managing to keep a couple of military installations on Syrian territory: the airbase in Hmeimim and the naval base in Tartus.
Syria has certainly become a seismic epicentre where anything could happen, as in Ukraine and Palestine. The fault line of destabilisation also includes countries like Romania, where the constitutional court has annulled the first round of the presidential elections, and South Korea, where President Yoon Suk Yeol has declared and then retracted martial law. China, for its part, is tempted to launch its military attack on Taiwan before Donald Trump takes office and is deploying its largest naval fleet in decades around the island.
And Europe? The two governments that to this point have been the linchpin of the European Union, France and Germany, are experiencing government crises unprecedented in the last fifty years. In Berlin, the coalition led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz has fallen apart, and elections will be held at the end of February. In Paris, on 4 December, came the fall of Michel Barnier’s government, backed by Macron but lacking a majority capable of supporting it.
Giorgia Meloni’s Italy represents, at least apparently, a happy island of stability in the turbulent European context. There remains — for Italy as for all of Europe — the unknown of the social revolts of Islamist origin in the urban outskirts, which had their dress rehearsal in the clashes in Amsterdam and could be encouraged by the new Turco-Syrian regime.
In this setting, the Catholic Church, which political analysts consider an important “soft power”, is experiencing a crisis never known in its history. The Jubilee of 2025 could see the explosion of doctrinal, canonical and disciplinary conflicts within it. The growing voices of Italian priests who refuse to recognise Jorge Mario Bergoglio as the legitimate pontiff should not be underestimated, because they represent the tip of the iceberg of a widespread and profound malaise involving the very figure of the Roman Pontiff.
Can it be denied? A world crumbles, and the collapse, as shown by the case of Syria, can be rapid and devastating. Yet there is no lack of reasons for supernatural hope. On 8 December, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, five years after the fire that destroyed a large part of Notre Dame on 15 April 2019, the French cathedral unexpectedly rose again in all its splendour. Some parts of the restoration, and especially the liturgical decorations, leave much to be desired, but on the whole the execution of the work has been surprising. Divine Providence has made use of an enemy of Christian Civilisation (as French Republic president Emmanuel Macron certainly is) to make a true miracle possible: the rebuilding of Notre Dame “identical to the original”. This was due to an extraordinary outpouring of generosity, from minor and major benefactors, and to the efforts of 2,000 labourers and craftsmen, who worked day and night on the gigantic construction site, using the wood of 2,000 oaks to build the new rafters and spire of the cathedral. On the day of the inauguration, the vaults resounded and the stones of Notre-Dame trembled at the thunder of the great 8,000-pipe organ of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, also spared by the fire and now restored. Giuliano Ferrara, in Il Foglio of 7 December, writes:
“Now Michael Kimmelman, an architecture expert for the New York Times, says that the work of the two thousand restorers, who have redone the oak roof and the flèche, sorted and restored and reconstructed the surviving stone, the stained-glass windows and the rest and the facade, has been a miracle of faith and devotion. In the country of laïcité and atheism, and of the revolutionary transcendence of the Supreme Being, in that France which is the eldest daughter of the Church, whether it acknowledges it or not, something has been brought about which, according to an architecture critic active in Manhattan, suspends all laws of a political and administrative nature and of the art of redoing things as they were and where they were; indeed a miracle of dedication, faithfulness, loyalty.”
If the Syrian revolution is a metaphor for the contemporary chaos, Notre Dame is the symbol of the peaceful and harmonious order of a Christian civilisation that does not wane. The cathedral that rises again from the ashes is not only the symbol of French national history, it is the symbol of the conscience of the West and of the Christian roots of Europe, ever revived by the supernatural action of grace.
The intervention of Divine Providence that allows the rebuilding of a cathedral in ruins is also capable of achieving the rebirth of a civilisation in ruins, like that of the West and Christianity. The fire devours it, but is not able to destroy it. A world crumbles, but Our Lady keeps her promises of order, peace and victory. (Roberto de Mattei)
Source: https://voiceofthefamily.com/a-world-crumbles-notre-dame-rises-again/ Julani, former leader of the Syrian column of al-Qaeda and a point of reference for Islamic “foreign fighters” all over Europe. His network included Abdoullakh Anzorov, the Chechen terrorist who beheaded French high-school teacher Samuel Paty in 2020.
Al-Julani’s assurances of moderation are reminiscent of those with which the Taliban sought to reassure international public opinion in the aftermath of the conquest of Kabul. They are promises that are worth little or nothing, as the facts demonstrate. Arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial executions, collective punishment of minorities, denial of human rights are the order of the day in Afghanistan after three years of conquest of power by Islamic extremists.
Assad was supported by Russia and Iran, two countries that certainly come out losers in the turn of events in Syria. The regional alliance of Moscow and Tehran is showing new signs of weakness after the blows that Israel has dealt to Hamas in Gaza and to Hezbollah in Lebanon. But only when the shockwave should extend to Iran could the world heave a bit of a sigh of relief. However, al-Julani’s victory is nothing other than the victory of Recep Erdogan, who means to expand his “neo-Ottoman” empire to the East and West. In this respect also, any optimism is out of place.
Some conspiracy theorists swear that behind al-Julani’s victory is the hand of Israel and the United States, with the intent of weakening, as has in fact happened, the Russia–Syria–Iran “axis of evil”. Others see the events in Syria as the outcome of a strategic agreement reached on 7 December in Doha. With this, the tsar of the Kremlin is viewed as having freed himself from a useless burden and having handed Syria over to the Turkish sultan, while managing to keep a couple of military installations on Syrian territory: the airbase in Hmeimim and the naval base in Tartus.
Syria has certainly become a seismic epicentre where anything could happen, as in Ukraine and Palestine. The fault line of destabilisation also includes countries like Romania, where the constitutional court has annulled the first round of the presidential elections, and South Korea, where President Yoon Suk Yeol has declared and then retracted martial law. China, for its part, is tempted to launch its military attack on Taiwan before Donald Trump takes office and is deploying its largest naval fleet in decades around the island.
And Europe? The two governments that to this point have been the linchpin of the European Union, France and Germany, are experiencing government crises unprecedented in the last fifty years. In Berlin, the coalition led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz has fallen apart, and elections will be held at the end of February. In Paris, on 4 December, came the fall of Michel Barnier’s government, backed by Macron but lacking a majority capable of supporting it.
Giorgia Meloni’s Italy represents, at least apparently, a happy island of stability in the turbulent European context. There remains — for Italy as for all of Europe — the unknown of the social revolts of Islamist origin in the urban outskirts, which had their dress rehearsal in the clashes in Amsterdam and could be encouraged by the new Turco-Syrian regime.
In this setting, the Catholic Church, which political analysts consider an important “soft power”, is experiencing a crisis never known in its history. The Jubilee of 2025 could see the explosion of doctrinal, canonical and disciplinary conflicts within it. The growing voices of Italian priests who refuse to recognise Jorge Mario Bergoglio as the legitimate pontiff should not be underestimated, because they represent the tip of the iceberg of a widespread and profound malaise involving the very figure of the Roman Pontiff.
Can it be denied? A world crumbles, and the collapse, as shown by the case of Syria, can be rapid and devastating. Yet there is no lack of reasons for supernatural hope. On 8 December, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, five years after the fire that destroyed a large part of Notre Dame on 15 April 2019, the French cathedral unexpectedly rose again in all its splendour. Some parts of the restoration, and especially the liturgical decorations, leave much to be desired, but on the whole the execution of the work has been surprising. Divine Providence has made use of an enemy of Christian Civilisation (as French Republic president Emmanuel Macron certainly is) to make a true miracle possible: the rebuilding of Notre Dame “identical to the original”. This was due to an extraordinary outpouring of generosity, from minor and major benefactors, and to the efforts of 2,000 labourers and craftsmen, who worked day and night on the gigantic construction site, using the wood of 2,000 oaks to build the new rafters and spire of the cathedral. On the day of the inauguration, the vaults resounded and the stones of Notre-Dame trembled at the thunder of the great 8,000-pipe organ of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, also spared by the fire and now restored. Giuliano Ferrara, in Il Foglio of 7 December, writes:
“Now Michael Kimmelman, an architecture expert for the New York Times, says that the work of the two thousand restorers, who have redone the oak roof and the flèche, sorted and restored and reconstructed the surviving stone, the stained-glass windows and the rest and the facade, has been a miracle of faith and devotion. In the country of laïcité and atheism, and of the revolutionary transcendence of the Supreme Being, in that France which is the eldest daughter of the Church, whether it acknowledges it or not, something has been brought about which, according to an architecture critic active in Manhattan, suspends all laws of a political and administrative nature and of the art of redoing things as they were and where they were; indeed a miracle of dedication, faithfulness, loyalty.”
If the Syrian revolution is a metaphor for the contemporary chaos, Notre Dame is the symbol of the peaceful and harmonious order of a Christian civilisation that does not wane. The cathedral that rises again from the ashes is not only the symbol of French national history, it is the symbol of the conscience of the West and of the Christian roots of Europe, ever revived by the supernatural action of grace.
The intervention of Divine Providence that allows the rebuilding of a cathedral in ruins is also capable of achieving the rebirth of a civilisation in ruins, like that of the West and Christianity. The fire devours it, but is not able to destroy it. A world crumbles, but Our Lady keeps her promises of order, peace and victory. (Roberto de Mattei)
Source: https://voiceofthefamily.com/a-world-crumbles-notre-dame-rises-again/
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