The cathedral of Notre Dame

was not "just a church". It was not "just a cathedral" either. It is still a cathedral, a cathedral which will need years of careful repair.
Right around me yesterday there were comments about "why bother" and "just knock it down".  They came from people who don't go to church and who have very little, if any, sense of history. These people did not approve the former Prime Minister's suggestion that we should contribute towards the rebuilding and dismissed a similar remark from one of the current contenders for the position.
Should we contribute? I think the answer to that is, as the outgoing Prime Minister put it, let's wait and see what the French want. They may, almost certainly will,be seeking financial contributions because it is a World Heritage site and they are bound to repair it - and to do so as closely as they can to the way it was. They may also have to seek expert advice. I know someone who will almost certainly be called in to give an opinion. He happens to be Jewish but he knows his job and has worked on World Heritage structures before. 
It will all be a long, slow process and I don't envy those involved.
And does it matter? Yes, it does. 
There isn't much mention of cathedrals and like structures in books for children but, as people were talking yesterday, I was reminded of one of Cynthia Harnett's books, "The Load of Unicorn."  It is set in the time of Caxton, as printing is just beginning to get under way. At one point in the story Harnett has the young hero, Bendy, visit his father who is a scribe in Westminster Abbey. It is a position his father has taken up in his retirement from his business making chap books. 
I can remember reading about this when I around ten years of age and suddenly realising that churches had once been much more than places people attended just on Sundays. For some, perhaps most, people at that time worship was a daily affair. People who could not read or write had to rely on people like Bendy's father. Boys who went to school went to schools run by the church. In Harnett's book, "The Woolpack" Nicholas is taught by the local priest. 
Churches and cathedrals, mosques and synagogues, temples and other places of worshop were the chief places of learning for centuries. The world's great art and architecture, music and literature have their roots in those places and medicine, science and maths developed there too.
We owe those who lived and worked in those places a great deal.  Repairing Notre Dame Cathedral isn't simply about repairing a building, an extraordinarily beautiful building, it is about acknowledging the past so that we can look to the future.