Maybe the next pope will be Jewish. <g>
Jean-Marie Lustiger
Country: France (Archbishop of Paris)
Age: 79
Assets: Jewish? Shore up Old Europe Christendom.
Liabilities: Jewish! Too old.
Lustiger's mother, a Jew, was killed at Auschwitz. If the cardinals wanted to generate excitement in Europe, choosing Lustiger sure would be a dramatic way to do it.
Do Jews consider him Jewish? Technically, yes. As Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, author of Jewish Literacy, said, "According to Jewish law, a person born to a Jewish mother is Jewish, and being Jewish is not something a person can renounce. However … the Jewish community does not normally relate to such a person as a Jew."
Lustiger is, Telushkin says, popular with Parisian Jews, but other pundits feel that many Jews would be outraged if he were chosen. "Electing him would be a disaster for Catholic-Jewish relations," says Reese. "Some Jews would see this as the church putting him up as an example of what Jews should do."
What probably really rules him out now is his age. Since the mandatory retirement age for cardinals is 75, it might be a bit awkward moral-authority-wise for the pope to bust the cap. So, we probably will never get to find out whether Jewish mothers around the world would have told their children that some day they could grow up to be a doctor, a lawyer, or a pope.
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