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To: Tom Clarke who wrote (14853)	10/11/1999 5:23:00 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Respond to of 17770

More 'fascinating' background on Monseigneur Jean-Marie Lustiger..... ASSOCIATED PRESS - Saturday, 23 March 1996 French police stir storm by evicting Africans from Saint-Ambroise church PARIS - Police evicted 300 mostly African illegal immigrants from a Paris church on Friday and detained 43 of them after a five-day occupation, provoking denunciations by French civil rights campaigners. Paris police said the 43 detained included 32 people from Mali, three from Guinea, three Syrians, two Mauritanians and one each from Gabon, Morocco and Senegal. All were in France illegally and most lacked identity papers, police said. Eighteen of the 43 were sent to a special lock-up for people about to be expelled from the country, police said. The remaining Africans, protesting against stringent French immigration laws, moved into a nearby sports hall after they were forced out of the Saint-Ambroise church in central Paris. Charities and human rights groups condemned the police, who accused the immigrants of refusing to negotiate. Between 200 and 300 protesters later chanted slogans near Prime Minister Alain Juppe's office calling for residency permits to be granted to illegal immigrants and for new measures aimed at checking illegal immigration to be repealed. Abbe Pierre, an elderly Roman Catholic priest who campaigns for the rights of society's outcasts, joined the immigrants in the gymnasium along with Jacques Gaillot, a French bishop sacked by the Vatican last year for his liberal views. Paris police said they acted because of deplorable sanitary conditions in the church. The families had occupied the church since Monday to demand that their requests to settle be reviewed urgently to avoid expulsion from France. Abbe Pierre, consistently shown by opinion polls to be the most popular person in France, appealed to Juppe to delay presenting what he called a "crazy bill" to parliament aimed at clamping down on immigration. The government is preparing to tighten France's already tight laws on immigration with rules expected to set up fingerprint banks, computer lists of people harbouring aliens and simplified procedures to allow quick expulsions. Gaillot faulted Jean-Marie Lustiger, the archbishop of Paris, for letting police enter the church. "The church should accept people whoever they are. The right of asylum has been its function through the centuries. The church is profaned when foreigners are evicted," he said. Human rights group France-Libertes, headed by Danielle Mitterrand, the widow of late president Francois Mitterrand, said the police had been heavy-handed. "Mediation should have been set up to help them to get out of their illegal situation," it said, adding that the families merely wanted to draw attention to their plight in France. France's population of 58 million includes at least four million legally resident foreigners but also up to one million others believed to be in the country illegally. The issue of illegal immigrants prepared to work for unlawfully low wages has become highly sensitive at a time when more than three million people are unemployed in France. _____________ Firstly, I must tell our American audience that this issue regarding Europe's so-called 'cardless people' (in French: les sans-papiers) is an increasingly sensitive topic throughout Europe. Right now, the Belgian government undergoes a serious hammering by left-wingers for last week's ethnic deportation of 28 adult gipsies together with their 44 children to gipsy-bashing Slovakia.... About one year ago, Italy gave up on the same issue by sorting out the papers of some 300,000 illegal migrants. At about the same time (after the '98 Soccer Mundial), France proposed likewise to regularize over 75,000 immigrants. Needless to say that the Yugoslav/Kosovo snafu triggered yet another wave of impoverished migrants toward Western Europe.... To come back to Mgr J.-M. Lustiger, it was indeed quite disturbing, even for many mild-mannered Catholics, to witness the stiffness of the archbishop of Paris in dealing with those distressed asylum-seekers. As dismissed bishop Jacques Gaillot rightfully pointed it out, the Church so far had a centuries-old tradition to harbor helpless wanderers. However, Cardinal Lustiger argued that Muslim or Animist fellows, who had moreover a dubious political agenda, should not be allowed to freeload the Catholic Church's benevolence for too long.... The funny thing about it is obviously Mgr Lustiger's short memory for his own wandering during WWII as a Jewish stray whose persuasion was never inquired after by his Catholic protectors. Well, I guess that if Sainte-Ambroise church were ever to shelter a bunch of Jewish wretches, Mgr Lustiger would not be so heavy-handed in 'pulling the plug'.... Qui sine peccato est, primum in illam lapidem mittat.... Gus.

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (14853)	10/11/1999 6:25:00 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Respond to of 17770

Here's some bio material that might help us to further understand the cast of Mgr Lustiger, that is, from a Jewish-born American Jesuit: jstb.edu Excerpt: Rightly or wrongly, many Jews suspected that any dialogic overtures made by the Church were done with the ultimate hope of the "finally seeing the truth," as it were, abandoning their own faith traditions and joining the side they "should have joined" long ago. Needless to say, colossal emotions are raised by such a stance, and one might begin to understand that initially cautious look in my friend's eyes. If he exuded a healthy dose of suspicion back then, he was not without historical fodder in doing so. The fairly pervasive perception by many in the Jewish community is sadly grounded in fact. And though the Declaration on the Church's Relations to Non-Christian Religions in the documents of Vatican II specifically speaks against this supersessionist approach, the residue from centuries of its prominence in the Church is still painfully with us. For instance, when conversations regarding the politics of Israel come around in Jesuit rec rooms, eyes still flicker toward me despite my twenty years of being Catholic. People I minister to almost always ask me about my conversion. It intrigues them. Was it easy? Was it hard? And always, always -- how do your parents feel? Instances such as these have inculcated within me a profound sense of how truly complex and potentially volatile the vocation of being a Jesuit of Jewish background can be, especially when relating to Jewish persons, and how deftly one must tread in this regard. And when I find myself being me with some cautious initial reactions from Jewish individuals I encounter, I see this as a highly graced and privileged opportunity to help break down some long-fostered and deeply felt notions toward both the Church and the Jesuits that were formed before Vatican II and that have had little exposure to changes brought about since then. Like Cardinal Lustiger, I still feel I have retained my Jewishness despite my belief in Jesus as Lord. I'm not sure I could divest myself of that identity even if I wanted to. Coming to the Jesuits with a background grounded in Judaism is an enormous help and blessing to me as a vowed religious preparing to be ordained a priest. The prayers of blessing said by the priest over the bread and wine at Mass are more or less the same ones I prayed in my youth. I resonated deeply with them as I do with all the Mass, which, among other things, is basically an extension of a Jewish meal. I see my apostolic focus as a Jesuit priest centered primarily around the eucharistic table, poetry, and the proclamation of God's word. My Jewish upbringing has been heavily infused with the sensibilities of word and table, respect and love for ritual, and a profound quest for learning. All of these have translated seamlessly into my Jesuit life. And due to the not insignificant remnant of Jewish theology and liturgical practice still inherent in Catholicism, a Jewish upbringing has given me a highly efficacious tool in attempting to show commonality between both traditions. Though both clearly have divergent tracks, the paths have moments of striking proximity as scripture often reminds us. I remember some sermons I've preached when the readings reflected such closeness. I remember, as well, being deeply grateful at such times for my Jewish past, whose cherished strains profoundly enrich my Jesuit life and ministry. *Eric Zuckermann (MTS '98) is currently the pastoral minister at St. Aloysius Church in Spokane, Washington.* Needless to say that Mgr Lustiger has been elected as the Vatican's shadow emissary to Israel.... A couple of years ago, a prominent Israeli Rabbi vehemently opposed an official visit by Mgr Lustiger to Israel on the basis that Jews should not endorse such a 'high treason' to their own persuasion. Yet, so many issues remain to be sorted out --such as a papal visit to Jerusalem, e.g. Maybe the clincher on that issue will be the election of a Jewish-born Pope?? How about Cardinal J.-M. Lustiger as your next Pontifex Maximus, Charles? Think about it: a papal mass in Jerusalem, wrapped up in an oecumenical extravaganza gathering Lebanese Maronites, Egyptian Copts, and the whole shooting match (remember that Y. Arafat's wife is Christian) --at last! Gus.