People have every right to want to rebuild the Notre Dame Cathedral. On April 15, 2019, France faced an awful tragedy when the Notre Dame Cathedral caught on fire. The French president immediately declared that they would rebuild the historically-rich Cathedral after the catastrophe, sparking the debate whether or not it should be rebuilt because of the high price tag that would burden the French people. Yet after two days, a billion dollars was already raised to help build the Cathedral. This money was donated by empathizers, Catholics and big-name companies such as L’Oreal and Dior. Finally, people questioned why is it worth donating to rebuild the Notre Dame Cathedral when there are countless other tragedies happening around the world?

        The debate was instantly taken to Twitter, a platform where most heavy topics are publicized and talked about internationally. On the app, people, on a world-wide scale, being negative about how quick the Cathedral was to gain steam and a billion-dollars worth of donations. The main argument being that there were bigger disasters at hand: Flint still has dirty water, and world hunger is still at large and the world’s environment is deteriorating incredibly quickly, among others. These are all more than valid points. However, using these points to attack people donating to rebuild the Cathedral is disgusting.

        What these people fail to recognize is how important the Notre Dame Cathedral is for the French people. We do have enormous issues at large all around the world, but the Cathedral has been the heart of France for over 800 years. The French people literally calculate distances from other important buildings to how far it is from the Notre Dame Cathedral. The Cathedral is essential to French culture, so while it is a French landmark, it is also a part of the French and who they are as a country. Even if you are not religious and do not see how this Cathedral could attract the amount of funds it has, the building is full of French culture and building it took nearly two centuries, whereas it took nearly a couple days to end up in ruins due to renovations gone wrong.

        However, people do have a point to be enraged over how quickly the cause was to gain a billion dollars over other causes such as Flint, a city in Michigan that has gone without clean water for five years now. But Warren Central alumni and former-French exchange student Carla Cuvelier was fast to help put the cause in venacular for her American friends. She was incredibly passionate about the Cathedral and told about how important it is to the French people. She spoke about how France’s roots are from Catholicism and how it contributes to them as a nation. And while people still did not feel her same passion for the Cathedral, nobody could deny the feeling of ignorance for a whole culture after reblogging and retweeting alike posts since the catastrophe.

        It is mindblowing that other problems in the world are not being fixed as fast as they should be, but do not blame or question each other’s morals for wanting to rebuild the Notre Dame Cathedral. If the Statue of Liberty were to collapse suddenly, there would be millions of Americans ready to help retain the symbol of America’s freedom. Just because a person may have a strong desire to fix a Cathedral does not mean that they do not care for other major problems happening in the world. These donors may also partake in other huge issue-solving organizations or be religious and feel the need to take care of God’s grounds. Either way, we must work to be problem-solvers, not the maker of problems. We have freewill, and everyone should be able to choose what they do with their money.