The Polish Embassy indicated Monday it would not issue a visa to the dissident Catholic priest Monsignor Marcel Lefebvre, who reportedly wants to hold a mass at the Auschwitz convent Wednesday.
According to persistent rumors, Lefebvre, an anti-Semitic rejectionist of the mainstream Catholic Church, plans to say mass Aug. 15 at the controversial convent on the grounds of the former death camp.
It was rumored that Lefebvre will be accompanied by Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the extreme right-wing National Front.
Polish authorities here said they were aware of the rumors, but no Polish Consulate in France has reported a visa application from Le Pen or Lefebvre.
Piotr Chruszczowski, first secretary at the embassy, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the Foreign Ministry in Warsaw asked to be alerted if either man applied for visas.
According to Chruszczowski, there is little chance they would be issued on such short notice.
Le Pen, meanwhile, called his rumored trip a “groundless canard.”
The rightist leader, who has publicly called the gas chambers “a minor footnote to history,” said there was “no reason in principle why I should not go to Auschwitz, but I had no intention to do so.”
He also said he had “no relations with Msgr. Lefebvre” and claimed “all this is pure disinformation issued by the usual hostile headquarters.”
That was probably a reference to Jewish and other groups in France who regard Le Pen’s National Front as racist and anti-Semitic.
Lefebvre broke with the Roman Church after Vatican Council II and formed a fundamentalist Catholic sect in France disowned by the Vatican.
A rebel against modern church doctrine, he rejects the absolution of Jews for the death of Jesus and insists the Mass be recited in Latin.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
