The AP reports:
Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, who sought to bring Jews and Catholics together in life, is continuing the mission in death.
In a funeral infused with symbolism, Jews will stand in front of the sculpted saints of Notre Dame cathedral today and recite kaddish, moments before an archbishop reads Psalms for the Jew who converted to Catholicism, became a towering figure in the church, and was even touted as a possible candidate for the papacy.
Lustiger's own faith remained complex up until his death Sunday at age 80 in a Paris hospice. He never rejected his Jewish identity[. H]is mother died at Auschwitz and [he] worked to heal wounds between France's Jews and Catholics.
The longtime archbishop of Paris, a confidant of late Pope John Paul II, asked that his funeral include both faiths.
Arno Lustiger, 83, a cousin who is a German historian and Auschwitz survivor, told The Associated Press that this was his cousin's wish, to share the remembrance this way.
Arno Lustiger will lead the reading of kaddish [mourner's prayer], in Hebrew, in front of Notre Dame Friday morning.
A grandnephew, Gila, will read a Psalm and message to the cardinal from his family, in French. Another relative, Jonas-Moses Lustiger, is bringing earth from Christian holy sites in and around Jerusalem to be sprinkled on the coffin.
Shortly after the kaddish, Lustiger's successor as archbishop of Paris, Andre Vingt-Trois, will lead a funeral Mass inside the 12th-century cathedral, one of the greatest symbols of French Catholicism.
Among those in attendance will be France's leading Jewish and Catholic figures, as well as President Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy will interrupt his U.S. vacation to attend Lustiger's funeral, before jetting back to Maine for lunch the next day with U.S. President George W. Bush.
Many of those attending the Mass are expected to attend the kaddish reading as well, the Paris diocese said.