ecumenism and dialogue " "
“The greatness of man is knowing how to say no, at any cost, to what is utterly unacceptable”, such as anti-semitism and racism. That’s the message that the Council of the Churches of France has spelt out to the country in a joint statement written to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The document is signed by pastor Jean-Arnold de Clermont, president of the Protestant Federation of France, Metropolitan Emmanuel, president of the Assembly of Orthodox Bishops of France, and Archbishop Jean-Pierre Ricard, president of the French Episcopal Conference. The representatives of the Churches commemorate the 6 million victims, “men, women, children and the elderly, barbarously assassinated in Europe only because they were Jews. The Christian memory and the atonement of the Churches cannot wipe out, nor can they make us forget, what some peoples inflicted on the Jewish people”. “Today, unfortunately continues the message anti-semitism and racism have not disappeared. That’s why we ask all the churches never to tire of denouncing any form of anti-semitism, whatever its origins, as an attitude utterly incompatible with the Christian faith. Anti-semitism is a sin both against God and against man”. “I would never have thought of returning” to Auschwitz because “it is a place of death and destruction. If I go it is because the Pope has asked me to”, said Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, archbishop of Paris and special envoy of the Holy See at the commemorative events in Poland on 27 January. The cardinal lost his mother and some thirty members of his family at Auschwitz. In a statement released to journalists and to the Catholic French daily “La Croix”, the cardinal said: “Auschwitz reveals to us what we refuse to see in all human tragedies and ills, massacres and wars: namely, the contempt for man: that man who is, for believers, made in the image and likeness of God”.
