Top cardinal sees rising anti-Semitism in Europe

A top cardinal said in an interview published yesterday that anti-Semitism was on the rise in Europe and urged constant vigilance to avoid setting out on "the path to Auschwitz".

Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, a Frenchman who has carried out several sensitive diplomatic missions as a personal envoy of the Pope, said that despite strong Church condemnation of anti-Semitism, European mentalities were too slow to change.

"The path that leads to Auschwitz is always in front of us and it starts with 'small' deficiencies," Cardinal Etchegaray said in an interview with Italian newspaper La Stampa.

"There is a return of anti-Semitism in our Europe... Not to recognise it, not to call it by its name is an unwitting way of accepting it," he said.

Jewish groups in Europe and the United States say a "new anti-Semitism" has emerged in recent years among Muslim youths who threaten or attack their Jewish neighbours out of solidarity with Palestinians battling the Israeli military.

Cardinal Etchegaray said resurgent anti-Semitism could not be blamed entirely on the fallout from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, noting that the phenomenon had developed in Europe over centuries.

He urged constant vigilance and frank solidarity with Jewish communities to combat the trend.

Cardinal Etchegaray has carried out several high-profile papal missions, including a visit to Saddam Hussein in Baghdad last February as part of the Vatican's diplomatic drive to avert a US-led invasion of Iraq.