Here is a truly excellent commentary on events in France, by Anthony Esolen and appearing today in American Greatness.
From the article:
As I write, no one knows whether the fire was accidental or the work of arsonists. I will not speculate here. People in such moments will grasp at what comfort they can find. I have heard it said that the loss is merely cultural, not spiritual. “Merely” is a word I will never place before “cultural.” Those who do so imply unwittingly that the substance, the culture, is already gone. No man says, while the flames reduce his home to cinders, “Well, it was only a home where our family has lived for a hundred years.” There is no such thing, for man, as only a home.