Top French Catholic Prelate Dies

BBC News, August 5, 2007

One of France's most senior Catholics, Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, has died in Paris at the age of 80. The former archbishop of the French capital died on Sunday in a clinic to which he was admitted in April.

He was born Aaron Lustiger to Polish Jews who had settled in France before World War I, converting to Catholicism at the start of World War II. Once tipped as a possible successor to Pope John Paul II, he was a close friend of the former pontiff. His mother Gisele was deported and killed at the Auschwitz concentration camp. For years his father Charles refused to accept his son's new faith.

"Serious Illness" - The senior churchman was archbishop of Parish for 24 years before stepping down in 2005 at the age of 78. He was made a cardinal in 1983. The prelate told priests and deacons in October 2006 that he was receiving treatment for an unspecified "serious illness." The last time he was seen in public was in January this year. French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the prelate's death in a statement without giving details.

The outspoken opponent of racism and anti-Semitism, Cardinal Lustiger followed a conservative line similar to that of the late pontiff.