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Article: French bishops sorry for wartime silence.(on anti-Semitism during Nazi occupation in World War II)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- National Catholic Reporter
- Article date:
- October 10, 1997
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 National Catholic Reporter. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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DRANCY, France -- At a ceremony near a former Jewish deportation camp, French bishops made an unprecedented apology for their church's "silence" in the face of anti-Semitic policies during Nazi occupation in World War II.
As a crowd of several hundred Christians and Jews listened Sept. 30 in the Paris suburb of Drancy, Bishop Olivier de Berranger of the St. Denis diocese declared that, particularly during the initial 1940-42 occupation period, "too many pastors of the church, by their silence, offended the church itself and its mission."
"Today we confess that this silence was an error," he said. "We implore God's forgiveness and ask the Jewish people ...