NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

      WARSAW (CWNews.com) - A Polish government spokesman said on Monday that the country wants to find a quick solution to the controversy over crosses setup near the former Nazi death camp Auschwitz by Catholics seeking to honor their dead.

      "No one needs to be convinced that the perpetuation of that conflict is simply damaging to the Republic (of Poland)," Jaroslaw Sellin told a news conference.

      A grassroots coalition of Catholics have defied government orders and pleas from Poland's bishops and erected hundreds of crosses in a field near the World War II death camp where more than 1 million Jews were killed, as well as thousands of non-Jews. The movement began as a show of support for a 21-foot cross erected on the site where Pope John Paul II prayed for Holocaust victims in 1979. Jewish groups have objected to any religious symbols near the site as an affront.

      Earlier this year a foreign ministry official said the papal cross would be removed as part of an agreement between the government and Jewish group, sparking the protest. When the government tried to take the field of crosses through legal action, a local court rejected the move. The controversy escalated over the weekend with the addition of a Stations of the Cross.