NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

      WARSAW (CWNews.com) - The leader of a grassroots campaign that planted hundreds of crosses outside the former Auschwitz Nazi death camp said on Wednesday that he has wired the crosses and his hut at the site with explosives.

      Kazimierz Switon, 68, who has lived in the hut -- consecrated as a chapel last month by a retired priest -- at the site over the past year, has also threatened to set himself on fire if the government removes 300 crosses planted at the site and his hut as required by a new law. Catholic groups, without the support of the country's bishops, have planted 300 crosses outside Auschwitz in the past year as a protest against Jewish calls that a large papal cross already there be removed.

      The original 26-foot original cross at the site, which commemorates Pope John Paul II's visit to the death camps in 1979, will remain under the government law. But activists, who originally erected the field of crosses to protect the original, now want all of the crosses to remain.

Articles provided through Catholic World News and Church News at Noticias Eclesiales and International Dossiers, Daily Dispatches and Features at ZENIT International News Agency. CWN, NE and ZENIT are not affiliated with the Daily CATHOLIC but provide this service via e-mail to the Daily CATHOLIC Monday through Friday.