I'm pretty sure everyone knows about the fire that has ravaged the Notre Dame cathedral in France in recent news. And it truly is a sad thing to behold. The Notre Dame was one of one of France's, if not Europe's, most recognized monuments and attracted as many as 13 million tourists every year. The cathedral itself has been standing for almost a millennium and took over 100 years to built with it's construction being completed in the 12th Century. Many priceless artifacts called Notre Dame home; artwork that includes paintings and sculptures, many of which date back to the Middle Ages, many holy relics including a piece of the Crown of Thorns allegedly worn by Jesus during His crucifixion and even alleged pieces of that same cross such as one of the nails and a piece of wood, 10 huge bronze bells that weighed 4 tons each, stained glass windows and the largest pipe organ in France, The Great Organ. The cathedral itself is a work of art in its own right and it's smart architectural design is part of the reason the stone portion of the cathedral is still standing while only wooden portions were destroyed. Luckily a few of the relics inside were confirmed to have been saved from the fire including the Crown of Thorns, the Tunic of Saint Louis, 16 statues including the statues of the 12 Apostles which were removed from the building just before the fire started, at least one of the 10 large bronze bells has been confirmed to be alright with the others believed to have survived due to the bell towers being virtually unscathed by the flames and firefighters managed to save some of the priceless artworks though they could suffer possible water damage. Sadly all but one of Notre Dame's stained glass windows were destroyed by the flames and the fates of the remaining artifacts, including the Great Organ, remain unknown at the moment. The cost for repairing the cathedral could be around 100 millions euros at least and could take up to 5 years to rebuild. Luckily most of the stone structure remains largely intact thank to its architectural design.

While the cause of the fire is still under investigation, it's widely believed to be linked to an accident that occurred during it's renovation. And of course the possibility of arson can't be ruled out considering the number of churches across France that have been burned, vandalized and desecrated as well as the number of anti-Christian attacks. What's even more revolting than the possibility of this medieval wonder being deliberately set ablaze is the fact that there were people celebrating it with posts on Buzzfeed, Al Jazeera, Facebook featuring smiley faces and at least one post wishing that people had died in the fire and numerous others wishing more fires like it would happen all over France. And not surprisingly most of the posts belonged to Muslims several more belonging to radical leftists who were celebrating the fire as a "take that!" to Western and European culture. Truly disgusting. If it was indeed arson we'll have pretty good idea as to who and what the motive was. And of course the French government could try to pin it on the yellow vest movement since they've been a thorn in President Macron's side since late last year and have themselves been responsible for a number of arsons. For the time being though we can just assume it was an accident.