Stewarding from the Margins

Lessons from The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Photo by Guillaume Didelet on Unsplash

Like every young gay kid I loved Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996). I still remember the scene where Esmeralda (the most beautiful woman my seven year-old eyes had ever seen) cut the bonds holding Quasimodo and then when told by the priest to be silent, lifted her knife in the air and yelled “justice!” My eyes were glued to the TV and my mouth dropped a little. I was in love. How could I not be? While the corrupt church officials did nothing but condemn beauty, Esmeralda the walking embodiment of beauty cut the bonds of an outcast. Beauty interceded and demanded divine justice. That is the fairytale that queer kids dream of.

Recently I finished reading through The Hunchback of Notre Dame for the first time. Among the many lessons I hope to draw out and write on further, one of them seems particularly relevant for those at the margins of our churches. Namely; the Church is sacred and those at the margins are its true stewards.

The Church is sacred, precisely because it is instituted by God and is the bride of Christ. It consists of the body of believers, crafted in the image of God, and who confess Christ as Lord of their lives. The sacredness of the Church is not separate from the sacredness of those who makeup the Church. They are one. I think we often forget that. The Church at its best declares the radical redemptive truth that those whom the world has rejected–the marginalized–are sacred. That within the Church, the outcasts will find sanctuary. Why? Because the Church was instituted for them. But who is tasked with stewarding the Church? Who is to attend to the sacredness of the outcasts?

Throughout The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo sets up an interesting contrast between two men who are inextricably connected to Notre Dame cathedral. They are Quasimodo and Claude Frollo. Hugo writes of Notre Dame as being:

...loved in different degrees and with such ardor by two beings as dissimilar as Claude and Quasimodo–loved by the one, scarcely more than half man, for its beauty, its majesty, the harmonies resulting from its grand whole. Loved by the other…for the symbols hidden beneath the sculptures of its façade…in short, for the riddle that it eternally offers to human understanding.¹

The distinction between these two and what they love about Notre Dame is telling. Quasimodo, a man born with severe physical deformities was abandoned at the cathedral as a baby. Under Frollo’s care he lived in the cathedral and would scarcely leave. He became the bell ringer. The sound of the bells brought him joy bordering on ecstasy. Sadly though the bells also made him deaf. In short, Quasimodo did not navigate through the world easily. Notre Dame then became his sanctuary, a place of refuge. Frollo on the other hand, saw Notre Dame as withholding secret knowledge that if he could only ascertain, he might be able to master his craft of alchemy. When Frollo is introduced to the reader, his role as Archdeacon is really in name and title only. Notre Dame then for Frollo is, at best, a tool for his own advancement; and at worst, a weapon he wields against any perceived threat to himself.

Quasimodo loved Notre Dame for its beauty and truly delighted in it. And Quasimodo’s rightly expressed love for Notre Dame, and subsequently his rightly expressed love for Esmeralda, brought him life. If Quasimodo is an example of how to rightly express your love for beauty, then Claude Frollo is the antithesis of that expression. Frollo loved Notre Dame in the same way robber barons love the bounty of the natural world. Which is to say he exploited Notre Dame for his own gain. His own insecurities of losing his soul led him to believe that anything that could sway him or move him in any way was a threat and must be destroyed. So when Frollo is overwhelmed by the beauty of Esmeralda, he does not see her in the same way as Quasimodo, as a reprieve from suffering and someone to love well. But rather, Frollo is internally in hell and does not see beauty as an agent of salvation but rather as a tormenter.

The dynamic between Frollo and Quasimodo really starts to show when Quasimodo is pilloried on account of Frollo’s scheming. Frollo, the Archdeacon, the one who is supposed to show pity and has the power to intervene, walks past Quasimodo while he is unjustly punished, “as if in a hurry to escape a humiliating appeal, and by no means wanting to be recognized or addressed by a poor devil in such a situation.”² What is the point of the Church if its officiants do not show mercy? In a powerful moment though, Esmeralda, an outcast herself, intervenes and shows mercy by offering Quasimodo something to drink. One act of mercy begets another; Esmeralda having been framed for murder by Frollo is about to be executed until Quasimodo rescues her and takes her to Notre Dame. Here then the tension rises. Under Frollo’s command, Notre Dame became a vehicle for his personal retribution and lust. And yet; it is the same church that condemned Esmeralda which Quasimodo, the true steward of the church, takes her to and claims sanctuary.

Hugo notes that, “within the walls of Notre Dame the prisoner was secure from molestation. The cathedral was a place of refuge. Human justice dared not cross its threshold.”³ Those who know injustice, or know what it means to be hunted and powerless, having to dodge systemic traps because of your marginalized status–know the cruel deficiencies of “human justice.” It is to that brokenness in the world that the sacredness of the Church is supposed to intervene. A safe zone in a world that has gone mad with violence and hatred. Under Frollo’s stewardship, Notre Dame is profaned. Under Quasimodo’s stewardship, Notre Dame fulfills her sacred task.

Sadly, Quasimodo is superseded by the state, who through an act of parliament vote to remove Esmeralda from Notre Dame. Rumor of this impending decision reaches the Court of Miracles, a collective of outcasts of whom Esmeralda is a part of. They decide to rescue Esmeralda from Notre Dame before the state is able to seize her.

It’s a climactic scene. “If your church is sacred, our sister is sacred also; if our sister is not sacred, neither is your church!”⁴ So yelled the Bishop of Fools (the leader of the Court of Miracles) to the Bishop of Paris. The outcasts from The Court of Miracles rise up against the breakdown of the sacred order and lay siege to Notre Dame. The state responds by sending troops to put down the assault against Notre Dame, but also to seize Esmeralda. Only Quasimodo, the true steward of the Church, defends both the Church and those who take refuge in it; sacrificing and defending the beauty of creation. All of it comes to a tragic head and not one person in the story ends off the better.

Who should steward the Church? Who should care for the bride of Christ? Among many things, one who knows how to delight in her beauty. Those who know and show mercy. Those who confront injustice. Those who have encountered Christ, and see him and the divine sacredness within everyone they meet. If we look at the story of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, I would suggest that those at the margins, like Quasimodo and Esmeralda, are gifted for this purpose. It might sound silly, but I dream of a church where Quasimodo is the Archdeacon. Can you see it? Do we have the imaginative capacity to see those at the margins stewarding the church? Because the day is coming when the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

1. Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, p. 147.

2. Ibid., 212.

3. Ibid., 323.

4. Ibid., 382.