LE TEMPS IRREPARABLE
23 June 1996
THE PARIS CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP FORBIDS ATTACKS
AGAINST ISRAELI POLICIES
After many weeks of silence, cardinal Lustiger, Roman Catholic
Archbishop of Paris launched an violent attack against the most
revered priest of France, the abbe Pierre who gave his support to the
revisionist book of Roger Garaudy, "The Foundings Myths of
Israeli Politics" . Reviled by an almost unanimous
condemnation by the press of his position but strengthened by a
recent poll showing he had lost only 2% of the favorable views
expressed by the French public opinion, the abbe Pierre delivered a
heavy blast, blaming the fictitious unanimity of the press on the
"Zionist lobby".
During the controversy, since March, the French Roman Catholic
Church handed out only one rather low-key statement, rejecting the
revisionist view and providing the Church's own view that one cannot
go against "the most solid conclusions of the international
scientific community", a rather unexpected source of knowledge for
this Church.
The Paris Archbishop, born Jewish, converted to Christianity when
he was still a teenager. A, intellectual priest, his career has been
very quick. In books and interviews, he maintains that he is at the
same time a Jew and a Christian, although this seems difficult to
understand to his more simple-minded parishioners. The intellectual
establishment and the press love it.
To express his "blame" to the abbe Pierre, although he has no
authority over a monk like the abbe, he choose "Tribune
juive" , a minor Jewish weekly. "What is at stake, he said, is
an attack against Israeli policies and, on par with it, against
Zionism and the Jews in general."
Usually in order to shield Israel from criticism, it was said by
its supporters that a critique of Zionism was a veiled attack against
Jews. But the ordinary use of criticism against Israeli policies was
authorized as a proof that the use of criticism was still
allowed.
Archbishop Lustiger, who recently introduced a seemingly Jewish
rite into a Catholic celebration for the seven monks assassinated in
Algeria, now forbids any criticism of Israeli policies or, more
probably restricts its use to authorized circles.
It was strange situation, without a precedent, to see a
self-proclaimed Jew as one of the leading personalities of a Roman
Catholic Church. But now the same person acts as an Israeli
spokesman. This situation is unheard of.
