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Fire-ravaged Notre Dame cathedral is being turned into a 'woke theme park' with renovators adding a 'discovery trail' and 'Christianity for dummies' exhibits, critics have claimed.
Under new plans, confessional boxes, altars and classical sculptures will be scrapped for trendy art murals, with sound and lighting effects creating 'emotional spaces.'
A 'discovery trail' will lead visitors through various chapels, with an emphasis on Africa and Asia, and scripture will be beamed onto the walls in various languages, including Mandarin. One of the sanctuaries will even be dedicated to the environment.
Maurice Culot, an award-winning Paris-based architect, told The Telegraph: 'It's as if Disney were entering Notre-Dame.
'What they are proposing to do to Notre-Dame would never be done to Westminster Abbey or Saint Peter's in Rome. It's a kind of theme park and very childish and trivial given the grandeur of the place.'
Under new proposals (some of the plans for the modern art murals pictured above) confessional boxes, altars and classical sculptures will be scrapped for trendy art murals, with sound and lighting effects creating 'emotional spaces.'[/img]
President Emmanuel Macron (pictured inside the cathedral in April) has set a goal of allowing visitors back inside in 2024, the year Paris hosts the Olympics
Smoke and flames rise during a fire at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris on April 15, 2019
Officials say that the symbol of France will be accessible to tourists with no understanding, 'whether from China or Sweden.'
But critics argue it debases the 850-year-old church and turns it into a 'politically correct Disneyland.'
One senior source close to the renovation told the Telegraph the plans risked turning Notre Dame into an 'experimental showroom' that would 'mutilate' the cathedral.
'Can you imagine the administration of the Holy See allowing something like this in the Sistine Chapel?,' said the senior source with access to the latest plans. 'It would be unimaginable. We are not in an empty space here.
'This is political correctness gone mad. They want to turn Notre-Dame into an experimental liturgical showroom that exists nowhere else whereas it should be a landmark where the slightest change must be handled with great care.'
Notre Dame was almost completely destroyed by an inferno on April 15, 2019, when images of its toppling spire were seared onto the minds of people around the world.
The roof and the spire are being restored to their former condition, but the new plans make drastic changes to areas of the cathedral that were largely unscathed.
The outpouring of grief after the fire saw more than £700 million donated to the renovation efforts.
President Emmanuel Macron has set a goal of allowing visitors back inside in 2024, the year Paris hosts the Olympics.
