NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

      WARSAW (CWNews.com) - Members of a Catholic workers' group erected more than 50 crosses at the former Nazi death camp Auschwitz on Saturday, despite opposition from Jewish groups.

      "We want the entire escarpment to teem with crosses," Kazimierz Switon, a group member who had just ended a 42-day protest fast, told PAP news agency. Poland's chief rabbi, Menachem Pinkas Joskowicz, says the presence of a Christian cross makes it impossible for Jews to pray at Auschwitz, 90 percent of whose victims were Jewish. Catholic groups said they also have a right to mourn their dead, including Saint Maximilian Kolbe and Blessed Edith Stein who both died at the camp.

      The new crosses were placed near a 22-foot crucifix, commemorating a 1988 visit by Pope John Paul II, which some Jewish groups see as an attempt to "Christianize the Holocaust -- the Nazis attempt to eradicate Europe's Jews."