On April 15, tragedy struck Paris as the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral caught fire. While the main structure of the Notre Dame is still intact, the symbolic spire burned down, along with other portions of the landmark. The Prime Minister of France has vowed that the monument will be completely restored by the Olympics held in France in 2024. Senior Alexander Bogobowicz said the burning down of the Cathedral “sucks.”

One interesting outcome of this catastrophe is that the novel, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” written by Victor Hugo in 1833, has quickly rose to the top sellers list again and two independent French bookstores have vowed to donate all sales of the book towards restoring the Notre Dame. Along with the bookstores pledges, within three days of the tragedy the public had accrued over $1 billion towards the restoration of the cathedral.

One of the issues with this much money being donated to the Cathedral’s restoration, is that the Catholic Church is one of the wealthiest entities on the planet, and they really did not need the money. The fact that such a large amount of money was raised in days when the money could have been used to eliminate real problems in our world, like water pollution and world hunger, has angered many. Junior Harrison Oen thinks similarly, stating, “I think the idea of raising money for it is stupid, the money could be used to improve the world versus restoring something.”

This tragic event has also sparked some questions about protection of the world’s historic monuments and locations, and whether or not we should put more resources into protecting them. The overwhelming response to that question was yes, we should put more resources into protecting them. Senior Kate Wilkinson states, “I think it is a good testament to history, and it is good to have recognizable things.” Freshman Andrew Myerson is on a similar page believing that “these landmarks were here before us, and they should be here after us.” There is a general consensus that we should attempt to keep the structures around as long as possible, and prevent another tragedy like this one from happening ever again.