The Jewish Catholic Cardinal
Born to non-practising Jewish parents, he converted when he was 14 during the Nazi occupation of France during World War II. He had read the Bible secretly and later said it felt like "reading something he already knew".
His parents were upset, he said in a rare interview with an Israeli Newspaper. He told them "I am not leaving you. I am not passing into the enemy camp. I'm becoming what I am. I am not stopping being a Jew -- just the opposite. I'm discovering a way of living it."
Two years later he lost his mother who died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.
He was the only Jewish convert to serve as a French bishop in modern times and held the post of Archbishop of Paris for over 25 years, retiring in 2005.
The Pope said yesterday that he was "a great figure" who had spent his life trying to improve relations between Catholics and Jews.
The head of the French Council of Jewish Institutions, Richard Prasquier, said he had always “shown a great fraternity towards his community of origin."
But his conversion also caused him to be labelled an apostate and raised the ire of Chief Rabbi Ashkenazi who accused him publicly of "betraying his people and his religion". Lustiger, said to be hurt by this attack, replied that it was the first time he had heard that it was "worse to be baptised than to commit the crimes of Hitler".
He seems to have used his unique position as what he described as "a Cardinal, a Jew and the son of a immigrant" to the benefit of both Catholics and Jews.
Preventing restrictions on Catholic schools in deeply secular France, the Cardinal also moved to stop a controversial convent being built at Auschwitz and led French bishops in a public apology for their predecessors' failure to criticise the Vichy government's anti-Semitic laws.
