He was not afraid

Just one year after his appointment as bishop of Rome, John Paul II raised mgr. Jean-Marie Lustiger to episcopate (November 1979) as the bishop of Orléans. Thirteen months later, he took him to Paris. A brave choice, probably one of the most farsighted ones in his papacy. The Pope had noticed the extraordinary spiritual energy which inhabited this man. He was an exceptional university chaplain for the students of the Sorbonne and a fervent parish priest during the difficult years that followed 1968. Fervent, this is the right word to define a bishop who took as his motto the word of the angel Gabriel to Mary: «nothing is impossible to God» (Lk 1, 37). He really was a Wojtylian bishop: he was not afraid. In particular he was not afraid of criticism, of the toughest attacks, simply because he was never afraid to proclaim the Gospel. Supported by God’s Word, he was not afraid to face a secularised society: to converse with contemporary culture, with writers and artists who were sometimes alien to faith; to have great media coverage; to be a great promoter of inter-religious dialogue; to renew the diocese of Paris; to multiply the new plans for the training of the priests; to open the service of the Church to the lay, and to promote the so-called new movements; to organise the World Youth Days of 1997 and to launch the operation «Toussaint 2004» which showed a new way of conceiving evangelisation in going to people and speaking of Christ; to build many new churches in the suburbs of Paris. In other words, he was not afraid to shake a fairly scared Church in France, in looking for an answer to the terrible question asked by the Pope in 1980: «France, what have you done of your baptism?». As a reader of Georges Bernanos, he was hard on the mediocre, fearful Christians, those who do not dare to face the consequences of their own faith. Indeed he was no compromising man. In his funeral sermon, mgr. André Vingt-Trois, his successor in Paris, highlighted «the vigour and the strength of his faith. First and foremost, he was a believer». In his tribute, the archbishop of Lyons, cardinal Philippe Barbarin «thanks God for the extraordinary spiritual energy which inhabited his heart». Cardinal Lustiger was born a Jew and his fate was doomed by the tragic history of last century. His mother and many members of his family were killed in Auschwitz: «I was born a Jew » he used to say. «I was given the name of my mother’s father, Aron. Once a Christian by faith and baptism, I have remained a Jew as the Apostles did». He wanted to overcome the separation during the first century, he wanted to overcome these centuries of hatred and contempt, which built the roots of the Shoah. He was at the source of many initiatives for dialogue with Hebraism, in particular the Manhattan meetings of Catholic bishops and rabbis. A Catholic by a baptism he had wanted to have in the dark times of Nazism, he had wanted to be always faithful to his people and assisted John Paul II in all of his initiatives to fill the gap between the two religions, especially the difficult ones of the repentance of the Church for the faults of the past. Cardinal Lustiger was a great pastor at the time of a great Pope: his episcopate (1979-2005) lasted as long as Wojtyla’s pontificate. He leaves a deep trace in the life of the Church. It will take some time before we can measure and add to the richness of his lesson. But he leaves a fundamental message for the Christians: do not be afraid because «nothing is impossible to God».