HEAD OF FRENCH CATHOLIC CHURCH TO CRIF: WE CAME A LONG WAY

Cardinal Archbishop Barbarin wrote: "Over twenty years ago, Cardinal Decourtray addressed you on the ocasion of CRIF's 40th anniversary. Since then pages have been turned in the history of the relations between Catholics and Jews, leading to a mutual respect in our differences and opening the Catholics to a deeper religious understanding of the Jews in today's world.

In some months, we shall celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of the camp of Auschwitz. We should not forget that this liberation came quite late. Not only did the March of Death lead away most of the deported ones, but millions of Jewish people, children, women, elderly people had been assassinated in the Eastern Europe common graves and in the extermination camps.

Obviously, one must commemorate not to let oblivion and trivialization destroy the names of those who are not any more. Moreover, one must remember that anti-Semitism is not a pathology like any other. It leads to the worst atrocities. Had there been no anti-Semitism in pre-war Europe, Auschwitz could probably not have existed. As Pope John Paul II often says, anti-Semitism is a sin against God and against mankind. We must relentlessly condemn it and also see to it that our own hearts not be tainted by anti-Semitism or by any racism. It is in his heart that man gets perverted.

I want to praise the Lord with you for the vitality of the Jewish communities in Lyons and more largely in all of the country. So many schools, so many yeshivot, circles of study, youth movements can only fill with wonder a man of faith. I attended last January in New York a symposium with some twenty rabbis of the world's greatest yeshivot including those of the Eastern countries and as many cardinals and archbishops.

I discovered with joy the wealth of the Jewish religious heritage, its diversity and what it can bring to the world, especially through the social welfare works. Allow me to remind that it is here, in Lyons, that the Jewish-Christian Friendship Society was created and that it is here, too, that Jews, Catholics and Protestants decided to act together in favour of the poorest ones and in favour of a humanization of the City.

More than ever, the world expects of us, in a great respect, a cooperation serving mankind, especially the most deprived ones, to match God's gift that we received in our various traditions. It is not anymore about a simple dialogue, understanding, but about being faithful for the needs of modern society. Wherever this effective cooperation is possible, in step and out of step, one needs men and women, on both sides, daring to associate to take up the challenges of society. I know that you are working to establish trustworthy relations with the Muslim communities in France, and I rejoice, because if hatred and conflicts may start in the simplest borough, peace, fraternity and respect must also take the same route.

I would like to remind that we did overcome more than misunderstandings, mourning, humiliations accumulated for over 200 years of history. Our reunion and our unexpected fraternity brought forward by men such as Chief Rabbi Jacob Kaplan and Pope John Paul II can only prompt us to more audacity and more hope.

Who would have believed fifty years ago that a Catholic Pope would insert between the stones of the Kotel an acknowledgement of repentance in the name of all the Church? Who could have thought that rabbis of the most orthodox yeshivot of Brooklyn would welcome in their schuls sixteen archbishops and cardinals from all over the world? Who could have imagined in Lyons fifty years ago that the Archbishop would receive such a good welcome at the Great Synagogue on Yom Kippur every year? Who could think today of the actions of interfaith peace that will occur tomorrow or after tomorrow?

For this, rooted in the confidence in those who preceded us and who acted in spite of all hope, like Jules Isaac who lost his wife and daughter gassed in Auschwitz, we can only turn together towards the future, facing the Everlasting, together with the other religions to help the children of our communities to give thanks, in fifty years time, for what we start daring to hope today.

And since my message is reaching you today, 25 October 2004, I wish to commend the initiative of CRIF's President, Mister Roger Cukierman, who intervened so that the Catholics would not be hurt by the use of images of Jesus and of Mary in an ad campaign. This courageous action only shows and strengthens the esteem and the mutual respect sealed between our two communities.

Let the peace established between us bear fruit and spread to others, let it first dwell in our hearts as a condition for the audacity we need to move forward.

Let peace come unto Jerusalem.

(signed) Philippe Barbarin, Cardinal Archbishop of Lyons, Primate of Gauls.

CRIF held a meeting of its Executive Board in Lyons to marks the organization's sixtieth anniversary. On this occasion, the Executive sat together with the local CRIF headed by Marcel Amsallem. CRIF's President Roger Cukierman also met with the mayor of Lyons Gerard Collomb and the region's Prefet, M. Lacroix, the local representative of the French government.