Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger
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His Eminence Jean-Marie Lustiger (French pronunciation: Missing image
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[[Media:Fr-Jean Marie Lustiger.ogg|]]) (born September 17, 1926), French clergyman, was archbishop of Paris from January 1981 to February 2005, and has been a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church since February 1983.
Career
Lustiger was born Aaron Lustiger in Paris, of a Polish Jewish family who had settled in France before World War I. When the Germans occupied France in 1940, he was sent to live with a Christian family in Orléans. He was converted to Catholicism and received baptism on August 21, 1940. His parents were deported, and his mother died in the Auschwitz death camp (his father survived).
Lustiger was educated at the University of Paris (the Sorbonne), where he graduated in arts, and at the Catholic Institute of Paris. He was ordained on April 17, 1954. From 1954 to 1959, he was an aumônier (chaplain) at the University of Paris. From 1959 to 1969, he was director of Richelieu Centre, which trains university chaplains. From 1969 to 1979, he was Pastor of the Church of Sainte-Jeanne-de-Chantal, in the XVIe arrondissement of Paris.
In November 1979, Lustiger was appointed Bishop of Orléans. In January 1981, he was promoted to the metropolitan see of Paris. He was made a Cardinal in February 1983, becoming priest of the Church of Saints Marcellino and Pietro in Rome. He became a member of the Académie Française in 1995.
Opinions
Like all the senior prelates appointed by Pope John Paul II, Lustiger upholds the authority of the Pope in these areas of theology and morals: "There are opinions and there is faith," he said in 1997. "When it is faith, I agree with the Pope because I am responsible for the faith."
Lustiger is an outspoken opponent of racism and anti-Semitism, be it because of his background or because of his faith. He has been strongly critical of Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the French National Front. He has compared Le Pen's anti-immigrant views with Nazism. "We have known for 50 years that the theory of racial inequality can be deadly...It entails outrages," Lustiger has said. "The Christian faith says that all men are equal in dignity because they are all created in the image of God."
Controversy
Lustiger is the only Catholic prelate in modern times who was born Jewish, a fact which has inevitably made him a controversial figure. He says he is proud of his Jewish origins and describes himself as a "fulfilled Jew." On becoming Archbishop of Paris, he said: "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 goyim. That is my hope and I believe that Christianity is the means for achieving it." (In this statement Lustiger was using the word "Israel" in the sense of "the Jewish people" and not as a reference to the State of Israel.)
Remarks like this give offence to some Jews, who say that Lustiger has no right to call himself a Jew, despite the fact that under halakha (Jewish religious law) he is a still a Jew even after having converted to another religion. Others say that "Jew" is also an ethnic designation as well as a religious one, and that Lustiger is entitled to call himself a Jew in this sense too. They point out that he was classed as Jewish under the anti-Semitic laws of Nazi Germany and Vichy France. His strong support for the State of Israel, which is at odds with the Vatican's officially neutral position, has also won him some support from Jews.
In 1998, Lustiger was awarded the Nostra Aetate Award for advancing Catholic-Jewish relations by the Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding, an interfaith group housed on the campus of Sacred Heart University, a Catholic university at Fairfield, Connecticut in the United States. The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights group, protested the award, saying it was "inappropriate" to honour Lustiger, who was born a Jew but left the faith. "It's fine to have him speak at a conference or colloquium," said the league's national director Abraham Foxman. "But I don't think he should be honored because he converted out, which makes him a poor example."
On February 11, 2005, Lustiger's retirement was accepted and André Vingt-Trois, a former auxiliary bishop of Paris who had become Archbishop of Tours, was named to succeed him as Archbishop of Paris.
Lustiger was a favorite of Pope John Paul II, partly because of his Polish background and partly because he staunchly upheld the Pope's conservative views in the face of much hostility from liberal Catholic opinion in France and general French anticlericalism. This led to some speculation that Lustiger would be a candidate to succeed John Paul II, but he always refused to discuss any such possibility. He was, however, one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2005 papal conclave that selected Pope Benedict XVI.
| Preceded by: Albert Cardinal Decourtray | Seat 4 Académie française | Succeeded by: Current member |
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