A priest from St.-Flour, a little town in the middle of France, came up with an inventive way to generate money for the restoration of the old organ in his cathedral. Farmers could hang their hams to dry in a curing facility he converted from one of the bell towers.
After being consecrated by a local bishop, pig legs floated peacefully in the dry air of the cathedral’s north tower for over two years, attracting much-needed revenue and satisfying the cravings of charcuterie enthusiasts. Then an inspector from the agency in charge of France’s architectural legacy intervened.
The inspector ordered the hams to be removed after finding additional violations including a grease stain on the bell tower floor. According to cathedral authorities, he stated in a report in December 2023 that they constituted a fire hazard. The disagreement reached the nation’s minister of culture, Rachida Dati, when the church refused to take down the hams.
Many people mocked the fight over the St.-Flour hams as an illustration of how overbearing government authorities may stifle creative local endeavors. It also addressed a more general problem that France’s elderly churches have been facing as they deal with expensive reparations: Who will foot the bill for preserving the nation’s rich religious legacy?
Following the French Revolution, the state confiscated church properties and eventually assumed control of the majority of them. However, the nation’s churches and cathedrals have proven difficult for the federal government and local governments to maintain financially.
Donations of over $900 million were used to restore Paris’s Notre-Dame Cathedral, which was devastated by a horrific fire in 2019. However, religious structures across the rest of the nation have been mainly left on their own.
The Culture Ministry estimates that 15,000 of the 45,000 religious structures in France are designated as historical monuments. According to the government, 363 of them are deemed endangered and another 2,300 are in bad condition.
Hadrien Lacoste, the vice president of the Religious Heritage Observatory, a separate nonprofit organization, described the situation as “alarming.” “Religious practice is declining, and rural areas’ demographics are declining,” he continued.
Towns like St.-Flour, which has a population of around 6,400, feel a great responsibility to preserve their churches and cathedrals since they are integral parts of their identities, even though church attendance is declining.
French historian Mathieu Lours, who focuses on religious architecture, remarked, “We’ve realized that each of our churches is a little Notre-Dame, that the village without the church is like Paris without Notre-Dame.”
xt, cheese?” asked Roger Merle, 68, the owner of a clothing store in the town.
