International
Vu Denn Les Copains?
By Soir 25/2/10
Mar 1, 2010 - 11:11:55 AM

Jean Marie Cardinal  Lustiger was buried in 2007.  He died of  cancer.  He was born almost 81 years ago to Polish parents who  ran a dress shop in Paris .  When the German army marched  into their city, his parents sent him and his sister into  hiding with a Catholic family in Orleans .  Their mother  was captured and sent to Auschwitz .

In 1999 as  Cardinal of Paris , Jean Marie Lustiger took part in reading of  the names of France 's day of remembrance of Jews who had been  deported and murdered.  He came to the name of Gesele  Lustiger, paused, teared and said, "my Mama!"  The effect  in France during a time of revived anti-Semitism was  electric.

He was just 13 and in hiding when he  converted to Catholicism, not to escape the Nazis he always  said, because no Jew could escape by conversion, and not of  trauma, he said.  Among his most controversial observation  , I was born Jewish and so I remain, even if that  is unacceptable for many.  For me, the vocation of Israel  is bringing light to the goyem.  That is my hope and I  believe that Christianity is the means for achieving  it.

There were a great number of Rabbi's who consider  his conversion a betrayal, especially after so many European  Jews so narrowly escaped extinction.  Cardinal Lustiger  replied, "to say that I am no longer a Jew is like denying my  father and mother, my grandfathers and grandmothers.  I am  as Jewish as all other members of my family that were butchered  in Auschwitz and other camps."

He confessed to a  biographer that he had a spiritual crisis in the
1970's  provoked by persistent anti-Semitism in France .  He  studied Hebrew and considered emigrating.  He said, "I  thought that I had finished what I had to do here and I might  find new meaning in Israel."  But just at that time the  Pope appointed him bishop of Orleans.  He found purpose in  the plight of immigrant workers.  Then he was elevated to  Cardinal, the Archbishop of Paris .

Jean Marie Lustiger  was close to the Pope.  They shared a  doctrinal conservatism.  He also battled bigotry and  totalitarianism.  For years, Cardinal Lustiger's name was  among those who was considered to succeed John Paul.   Without putting himself forth, the Cardinal joked that few  things would bedevil bigots more that a Jewish Pope.   The don't like to admit it, but he said, "What Christians  believe, they got---through Jews."

The funeral  for Cardinal Lustiger began at Notre Dame Cathedral yesterday  with the chanting of Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the  dead.

Sometimes there are profound inconsistencies in  our  world.