Ordained priest in Paris Cathedral, Mgr Dominique Rey, Bishop of Fréjus-Toulon, will not attend the reopening of Notre-Dame to the public.
“I am going to the Vatican this weekend and I will be in Corsica on December 15 for the Pope's visit. I cannot be absent from my diocese too often”he explains.
The rediscovery of a “monument intimately linked to the History of France”and which is said to be even more beautiful than before the fire, will therefore wait.
“I go to Paris regularly. I will go see Notre-Dame when the popular fever has subsided somewhat”confides Mgr Rey. For the moment the Bishop of Fréjus-Toulon says “very happy that the promise to rebuild the cathedral in five years has been kept”.
Spiritual, he sees in this rebirth of Notre-Dame as “a symbol of the mystery of the Christian faith”. And to clarify his thoughts: “The Christian faith is very linked to reconstruction, to the resurrection of Christ where the tomb becomes a cradle”.
Coadjutor bishop of this same diocese of Fréjus-Toulon since November 2023, Mgr François Touvet does not have the same personal history with Notre-Dame de Paris. He too will be absent from the capital on December 7 and 8.
“Without regret. I will wait for the first wave to pass and I will accompany pilgrims from the diocese to visit this cathedral which is reborn from its ashes”he declares. Before recounting, in a confidential tone, his first “visit” to Notre-Dame de Paris.
“It was October 2, 1975 on the occasion of the funeral of Cardinal Maurice Feltin, archbishop of Paris, who was the first cousin of my great-grandfather. I remember something grandiose with the presence of President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, but I admit that at ten years old I was more fascinated by the Republican guards standing in the nave. At the time, we experienced secularism in a different way…”
