Jean-Marie Lustiger
Aron Jean-Marie Lustiger , born the September 17th 1926 with Paris and dead the August 5th 2007 in Paris, was a dignitary of the Roman Catholic church, Archevêque of Paris of 1981 with 2005, created cardinal in 1983. He was member of the French Academy.
Biography
Youth and conversion
Aron Lustiger was born on September 17th, 1926 in the 12 {{E}} district from Paris. Its parents, originating in Jewish family ashkénaze coming from Poland (with Bedzin in High-Silesia where his/her father was baker), hold a trade of hosiery. Towards 10 or 12 years he discovers a Protestant Bible. The New Testament is essential on him as being the result of the Old Testament. He discovers the anti-semitism, of which he is victim. “ With the door of the Montaigne college, I was made break the figure because Jew. When I approached the boys who discussed between them, they said to me: " That is not looked at, you are a dirty Jew. " ” It makes of it also the experiment through the literature and at the time of a voyage in Nazi Germany in 1937, in a Protestant family, where it discovers, at the same time as the Nazism, first Christian adults anti-nazis. This period coincides with the obligation made to the Jewish citizens raise the yellow star. His/her mother is stopped in 1942 on denunciation of her employer, interned with Drancy then off-set towards the camp of Auschwitz, where she dies in 1943. Its clearness and its height of sights had made him understand that it did not have an other choice to shake the heaviness of the administrative structures and to fight against the sclerosis of the ideologies which choke French Catholicism. Having in heart to return to the liturgy its dignity and its beauty, it supported the recasting of the control of the Notre-Dame cathedral and the creation of a school of professional training including the animation of the offices to the cathedral, thus allowing a new deployment of the tradition of the Church in the cathedral of Paris. It ordered a new liturgical furniture for the chorus of Notre-Dame and made create new vestments with the concern of the beauty and the legibility of the signs. Frequently, Sunday evening, he preached and celebrated the mass in his cathedral.Those which on the occasion to discuss with him were struck by the depth of its thought and this simplicity, rare in the ecclesiastical world, which made that its interlocutor had from the start the impression to be regarded as equal, respected in his otherness and with which there were things to make. A conversation stopped since of the months could begin again as if it had never stopped.
Man of arts, letters and communication
Author of a score of works, it also harnessed himself with launching new media: Radio Notre-Dame just after the legalization of the free radios in 1981, the television channel KTO in 1999, the weekly report of the diocese of Paris: Paris Notre-Dame .
Its standpoint on the cinema, art and the deposit with the the Pantheon of ashes of the Abbot Gregoire, the modern orders of works that it passed for Notre-Dame or the archbishop's palace was the subject of debates not only in the press, but also with the political authorities.
The Lustiger cardinal was elected with the French Academy, the June 15th 1995, with the armchair 4, succeeding the cardinal Decourtray.
Role in the relations judéo-catholics
From its Jewish ascents, Mgr Jean-Marie Lustiger played a pioneer part in the relations between the Jewish community and the Vatican. To advise of Jean-Paul II then of Benoit XVI, he exerted a very important role of influence during the pontificate of Jean-Paul II.He ties the most delicate contacts to try to regulate, in 1987, the business of the “Polish Carmelite nuns” installed in the camp of Auschwitz, which contributes to a strong tension between Jews and catholics. The nuns will end up leaving the camp in 1994. Of this outcome, the cardinal gains the recognition of a Jew part of the world. Mgr Lustiger will be thus one of the inspirers of the declaration of “ repentance ” of the French episcopate in September 1997 with Drancy and one of the principal craftsmen of the success of the visit of the Pape in Jerusalem in the year 2000: visit with Yad Vashem and the Wailing Wall which was a pilgrimage of the memory, as well as the Christian ackowledgement of debt to the Jewish “older brothers”.
In January 2005, it represents the pope Jean-Paul II, at the time of the ceremonies of the 60e birthday of the release of the camp of Auschwitz. Then, in May 2006, it is present at Birkenau at the sides of the pope Benoît XVI.
After its death, the world Jewish Congrès made a point of paying homage to its positive action in favor of the relations between Jews and Christians.
Political role
For the Lustiger cardinal, the bishop must make in kind be a credible interlocutor of the political world, as a representative of the believers of his confession and the social force which they constitute. Without having political office, he plays a part in political space, and, accordingly, he discusses with the presidents François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac. In 1984, it carries out the dispute against the will of president Mitterrand to remove the independence of the catholic private school. A million defenders of the private school are in the streets, contributing to the withdrawal of the Loi Savary. In the same way, Mgr Lustiger will take radical positions on the defense of the Embryon, against the Euthanasie and the Clonage.
Its engagements with the service of wounded life, immigrants, unemployed, mark, on the great security questions, a courageous going beyond of the timidity of the Church of France, still imprisoned in a narrow reading of the principle of secularity of the State. That does not prevent it from defending the law of separation of the Church and the State since 1989, at the time of the crisis on the veil. Before the presidential one of 1995, it draws aside the father Alain of Morandais, too judged balladurien, of the station that it allotted d'" aumônier" policies. In 2003, he criticizes the will of Nicolas Sarkozy to reconsider the law of 1905 and to organize the Islam of France as if it were about a religion of State. Questioned by the “Commission Stasi” on secularity, he asks not to touch with the “ compromised with the Frenchwoman ” and decides against a law on the port of the veil at the school.
Disease and good-byes
When it reached the 75 years age, according to the code of Canon law, Mgr Lustiger presented its renunciation of its office of archbishop of Paris to the pope Jean-Paul II. This last was however particularly long to accept this resignation, undoubtedly because of the difficulty of finding the successor of such a personality. It is only in February 2005, whereas the archbishop had reached the age of 78 years, that the resignation was accepted, and Mgr André Vingttrois appointed new archbishop of Paris. According to the habit, the Lustiger cardinal since then carried the highly skilled title of archbishop of Paris.
Homages and funeral
The advertisement of its death caused the homages of many personalities of the political world and monk, among whom one notes the pope Benoît XVI, the world Jewish Congrès, the president of the French Republic Nicolas Sarkozy, the French Communist party or of other figures of left like Bertrand Delanoë, Jean Glavany or Jack Lang.
Its funerals were celebrated the August 10th 2007 in the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris by archbishop Mgr André Vingttrois, in the presence of many personalities, among which the representative of the pope the cardinal Paul Poupard, the president Nicolas Sarkozy, the Prime Minister Francois Fillon, the ministers Michele Alliot-Marie, Jean-Louis Borloo, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet and Roger Karoutchi, presidents of the National Assembly Bernard Accoyer and of the Sénat Christian Poncelet, the president of the area Île-de-France Jean-Paul Huchon, Mrs. Bernadette Chirac representing the former president Jacques Chirac, the former Polish president Lech Walesa, several members of the French Academy (of which Mrs. Helene Carrère d' Encausse, perpetual secretary, and Maurice Druon, honorary secretary), but also 500 priests, 50 bishops, 16 cardinals and several prelates, representatives of the Catholic churches of the East. Crowd gathered was estimated at approximately 5000 people.
In his speech of homage, Maurice Druon qualified the Lustiger cardinal of " wire, not of the chance, but of the exception" and greeted in him " our brother supérieur".
Of its funerals, he said by advance, with the outspokenness of which he was able in the intimacy as in public: I of insane, they will do what they will want. It was essential to him more to obtain Sky the permission - in thirty years - to look on the Earth how the things will have evolved/moved… That did not prevent it from envisaging thereafter, some time before its death, some gestures highly symbolic systems for its funeral. At the time of the lifting of the body, before the entry in the cathedral and the catholic liturgy, of the ground collected in Israel was deposited on its coffin; two members of its family, Jew confession, recited Psalm 113 (112) in Hebrew, and the Kaddish, Jewish prayer of endeuillés. Thus were symbolized its hope to see committed Judaism and Christianity " same côté" , as he said it, in the combat for the man, enraciné in the same faith with single God and the same hope in the promises of the Messiah.
The Lustiger cardinal is buried in the crypt of Notre-Dame de Paris, in the vault of the archbishops of Paris.
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