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Why is Notre Dame so important? We assume there are millions and millions of answers to that question, many of them bound up with memories. Here is a fragment of one. In the fall of 1963 your aging editor was, actually, young. I was 19 and living just a stone's throw away from Notre Dame at 8 rue de la Harpe. Everything changed of course with the assassination of
President Kennedy on Friday, November 22. What a night! My friend Sharon and I went to the U.S. Embassy where we signed the condolence book, and a few days later we went to the memorial service for President Kennedy at Notre Dame. There have been other, happier memories, but in this brain Kennedy and Paris are part of the same tableau.
His most famous trip to the City of Lights began on May 31, 1961, when he and
Jacqueline Kennedy arrived at Orly Airport outside Paris. They were met by
President de Gaulle, who gave a short, welcoming speech. Then President Kennedy stood before the microphones and expressed his appreciation. Here is a bit more from President Kennedy's remarks:
"I come from America, the daughter of Europe, to France, which is America's oldest friend. But long before my country was born, French influence, French philosophy, French culture led the Western World to such a degree that the first American ambassador to Paris, Benjamin Franklin, could say, 'Every man has two countries: France and his own.'"
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In thinking about President Kennedy over the years, it seems to us that he was especially good at expressing what, at least for him, were fundamental truths. One of his very best speeches was his commencement address at American University in June 1963. Physically, the setting was the AU campus. Conceptually, it was the middle of the Cold War and just eight months after the terrifying Cuban Missile Crisis of October '62. The President's theme was the quest for peace, but the speech also contained this summary of the human condition:
"For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."
In this more fractious age, one is reluctant to say anything about
all of us. We confess to the belief, however, that much of the world, if not all of it, also cherishes the idea of civilization and the notion that the struggles of the past have produced things of great value. The Cathedral of Notre Dame of Paris is a symbol of those thoughts.
Vive Notre Dame!
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