It took less than two days to raise nearly $1 billion to restore and rebuild Notre Dame after the iconic Paris cathedral’s devastating fire. Experts say it could take years just to secure the massive 800-year-old building and fully assess the damage, let alone bring it back. But while the physical damage is severe, and people are rightly grieving the cultural loss, it seems likely that the fire was purely accidental. The same can’t be said of the three black churches recently burned in a single parish in Louisiana, where a suspect has been charged with hate crimes as well as arson.
The good news, such as it is, is that Holden Matthews was caught before he could burn any more churches; Louisiana Fire Marshal Butch Browning testified in court that “The evidence we have was unequivocal” and another fire would be “imminent” if Matthews were released. And, in a way, the Notre Dame fire has helped the Louisiana churches. While Notre Dame has gotten the worldwide attention and billionaires’ donations with staggering numbers of zeroes on them, it’s also helped draw attention to what had been overlooked.
In the aftermath of the Notre Dame fire, a GoFundMe for the burned churches has gone viral, with the amount raised spiking from $50,000 on Sunday to over $1 million Wednesday morning. But we’re talking about three churches that need to be rebuilt—not majestic historic buildings with stained glass windows to preserve, but centers of their community that need to replace not just buildings but “pews, sound system, musical instruments.”
Help give these churches the resources they need to come back from a hateful attack.