ANTHOLOGY

CU CH LTU ZE R C E

From the proceedings of the conference presented by

Center for and University of St. Thomas

February 8-10, 2002

Nold Education Center St. Mary’s Seminary 9845 Memorial Drive Houston, Texas 77024 Copyright 2003 Center for Faith and Culture University of St. Thomas

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Voice: 713-686-6844, x229 Fax: 713-957-3174 E-mail: [email protected] TABLE OF CONTENTS

OPENING REMARKS

Donald S. Nesti, C.S.Sp., S.T.D...... 1

PRESENTATIONS

Tomas Kraus, J.D...... 5

Dominik Duka, O.P., S.T.L...... 20

Milan Opocˇensky´, Ph.D...... 33

Peter Esterka, D.D., S.T.D...... 45

HOMILY

Most Rev. Peter Esterka, Bishop of Czech Catholics in Diaspora ...... 61

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION...... 64

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... 66 1

OPENING REMARKS

by

REV. DONALD S. NESTI, CSSP

On behalf of the University of St. Thomas, Center for Faith and Culture, I welcome you to this conference on the subject of “Czech Culture: A Way of Life in the Light of Faith.”

The Center for Faith and Culture, founded in 1993, seeks to understand and affect the relationship between the worldview of Catholic faith and culture. It specifically desires to study the vision and values, symbols and codes of embodied in Catholic teaching and relate these to various .

The Center was approached by members of the Czech community and requested to develop an event which would permit the Czech community to enter into a reflection on its cultural roots and the three major faith groups in Czech history – Catholic, Protestant and Jewish. After all, one of the largest ethnic groups in Texas with Central European roots is the Czech community.

It was decided that the goal of the conference would be to reflect on his- tory of the relationship between faith and culture in . It was also agreed that the conference should be ecumenical in its structure and content, incorporating presentations from representatives of the Catholic, Protestant and Jewish communities. Each of the three presenters was to address the following: * The historical development of their faith in relation to Czech culture, * How sustained their faith and their culture through periods of oppression and times when there was no Czech homeland, and * Implications for the contemporary situation in the .

The Concept of Culture

As we begin the conference it is good for us to reflect on what we mean by the word culture. Very often when we think of culture we think in terms of what some call “,” i.e., the art, architecture and music of various classical, renaissance, romantic or contemporary periods of history. At other times we think more in terms of folk arts, dress, dance, music, etc. Sometimes 2 we conceive of it in terms of of any given period.

When using the term in the context of this conference, probably the best way to describe culture is in terms of how a people looks at the world, their window on the world, their worldview which consists of three essential and basic components: their understanding of or the element of mystery, their understanding of what a human person is and what the world itself is. Based on their perception of these three realities and the relationships between and among them, societies construct for themselves a shared way of life. This shared way of life is what we call a culture. In this shared way of life (culture) are contained their shared vision of existence, the values they espouse, the expected ethical norms of their interaction and behavior and their symbols. It determines the way they structure their institutions and how they think institu- tions are related to individual and common good; whether institutions such as family, education, , government, etc., are contexts in which they devel- op as persons or whether they are impediments to it; whether they are the means to developing the common good or not. It is their worldview that deter- mines the form of their civic and political life, governmental structures, their economic system and their legal system. This shared way of life is what forms the attitudes or dispositions of the heart of a society or a people. It cultivates the members of the society and shapes them in a way of life.

Faith and Religion

Because the human person is an infleshed spirit, the life of the spirit or is at the heart of every culture or way of life. Thus it is that culture and cult are intimately interwoven in the fabric of society. Even when people espouse a worldview that tries to deny, ignore or suffocate the dimension of spirit in its way of life, this too is a reflection of a dimension of the human person that clamors for attention. In a culture, a people are cultivated and ultimately have to address the question of cult, no matter what shape or form it takes. The life of faith or religion always stands before a people as a challenge and a promise.

What we are concerned with in this conference is to see how this life of the spirit has influenced the way of life of the Czech people, how it has influenced and affected all the components of their way of life which we have described above.

Faith is the response of the human person, as individual in community, to the numinous dimension of existence; religion is what binds people of faith together in a community of . It is the personal and corporate response of 3 people to God. In the case of the Czech people our conference was interested in seeing how, in fact, the Judeo- – as expressed through Jewish, Protestant and Catholic – affected their way of life.

People of faith presume that their faith vision will impact their way of life (their relationships with each other and with the world) and the lives of others whose world of faith may differ from theirs. How is it that they live their faith rela- tionships so as to affect their everyday life and vice versa? Our underlying pre- sumption in this conference is, therefore, that there is a constant interaction going on between our lives of faith and the culture that we form and that forms us.

Cultures are human creations; humans are responsible for the ways of life that they create. Being such, every way of life is as flawed as the humans that create it. Judeo-Christian tradition in its various faith forms is a positive response to the Living God’s self-revelation and is understood to bring an expanded vision to limited human perceptions of the world. It offers the oppor- tunity for the human person and human communities to transcend their limit- ed perceptions of ultimate happiness.

The Design of the Conference

Given these observations, we can see that we have invited our presenters to fulfill an impossible task. No one person – no group of people – can begin to understand the complexity of the relationship between faith and any way of life of a people. The relationship between the two is, in a sense, unfathomable. Yet, unless we enter into a communal, dialogic process of trying to understand how the two have interrelated throughout history and how they interact in the present context we shut the door to what the Living God is inviting us to do, namely to live lives of deeper mercy, compassion and justice. We neglect the opportunity to reflect the very image of God in which we have been created and to grow in the likeness of God as he intends.

It is for this reason that some sociologists describe culture as an ongoing conversation about meaning. Essentially it is meaning that we will be dis- cussing throughout the sessions of this conference. We have invited our speak- ers to dialogue among themselves and with us. They have courageously responded to our invitation to begin our dialogue, to challenge us, to engage us in what we hope will become an ongoing dialogue both here and in the Czech Republic concerning the life and health of the relationship between faith and culture. 4

This is especially true in light of what the world experienced on September 11, 2001. In his remarks to the leaders of world when they met in Assisi, John Paul II said:

Religious traditions have the resources needed to overcome fragmen- tation and to promote mutual friendship and respect among peoples. ...[T]ragic conflicts often result from an unjustified association of reli- gion with nationalistic, political and economic interests, or concerns of others kinds. ...[W]hoever uses religion to foment violence contra- dicts religion’s deepest and truest inspiration.

Religions are at the service of peace. It is the duty of religions and of their leaders above all, to foster in the people of our time a renewed sense of the urgency of building peace.

These words capture the deepest challenge of our conference. As we reflect on the history of our various faith traditions and their attempt to find new life in a post-socialist Czech Republic, we will be required to have to prac- tice the demanding required by persons who wish to dialogue in seeking truth. Our relational capacities of listening and responding, seeing, understanding, judging value, making choices and acting will be put to the test. Old biases must be broken through to see the implications of traditional faith visions in new vistas of mutual respect, tolerance, justice, reconciliation and peace. 5

THE JEWISH TRADITION

by

THOMAS KRAUS, J.D.

I. Historical Development

The history of the Czech Jewish community goes back at least 1,000 years. Some historians speculate about the Jewish origin of Prince Samo, the first his- torical figure appearing in the Slavonic history of . They point out that originally he was a “Frankish merchant” and his name could have been a garbled version of Samuel. If indeed he was Jewish or not, we do not know. However, it is evident that he was able to unite local Slavonic tribes in defense against the Avars, nomadic pagans, who were attacking the newly settled terri- tory from the East. His victorious battle at Wogastisburg in the year 623 C.E. marks a principal date and one of the very first records in Czech history as such. Samo’s tribal union was the very first formation of a geographic com- munity on Czech territory and a predecessor of Great Morava, a very early state.

The Jewish origin of Samo remains a mystery and a romantic saga. There are more such Jewish tales and legends in early Czech history. One of them recounts the story of the founder of the ruling Premysl dynasty, Countess Libuse, who was chosen by the Czechs as their leader because of her ability to predict the future. Her most famous envisioned as “...a city whose glory is reaching to the stars.” There are others as well. One less known prophecy speaks about her vision of a group of foreigners coming into the land and asking for shelter. These people came from “...a small and much persecut- ed nation what involves only one God. They should be received with hospital- ity as they will bring to our beautiful meadows and groves many blessings.” In 859 C.E., circa, one hundred years after Libuse passed away, her great-grand- son Hostivit (his name means “Greeting Guests”) welcomed, according to this legend, elders of an “ancient and highly respected tribe...named after its fore- father Israel” and provided them with living space and full protection.

We can see that the legend was “adjusted” somewhat at the end of the nine- teenth century by romantic Czech authors who were fascinated by Jewish cul- ture. V. V. Tomek or Alois Jirasek perceived in Jewish history a strong parallel to the history of the Czech nation. Though this oral legacy suggests that the 6

Jews came to Czech lands before , strict historical data prove Jewish presence there only in the tenth century.

The very first written historical document mentioning in and is the Raffelstetten Custom and Navigation Regulations which is dated between 903 and 906 C.E. Jewish merchants were going along the Danube River, a border between the Frankish Empire and the Slavonic states, and Prague was very likely their first stop, lying in the heart of the country and being a natural trade center and crossroads of important routes. The first docu- ment that refers to Prague comes from a Jewish hand. A Jewish merchant and diplomat with an Arab-Jewish name, Ibrahim ibn Jacob, wrote a Marco Polo travel book about Prague in 965 C. E. He describes Prague as being an important settlement and a flourishing place with a castle surrounded by build- ings and marketplaces.

Other materials documenting Jewish history in early Bohemia and Moravia, especially Prague, exist as well. They describe a fruitful and non- problematic coexistence, almost a symbiosis, between the Jewish community and the local inhabitants. Some ancient Hebrew manuscripts which originated in Prague use even old Czech words to give a more precise description (“Or Zarua” by Isaac ben Moses). Other documents refer to Czech as “our lan- guage,” proving almost a full integration of the Jewish community into the Czech environment (Roman Jacobson). This peaceful coexistence came to an end, however, as it did throughout Europe, with the invasion of the crusaders in the late eleventh century.

In 1095 C.E., Pope Urban II, at the Council in Clermont, called for “liber- ation of the Divine grave” which resulted in the formation of the first crusade. This campaign was composed of nobles, feudals and uncontrolled crowds of farmers and peasants from northern and western . This mob swept through the Rhineland and left in its wake burnt and houses and thousands of murdered “,” Jewish men, women and children. Unfortunately, these atrocities did not bypass Prague when the crusaders were marching towards Jerusalem in the East. After the first, ever, pogrom in Prague in 1096, the Jews started to leave the city. In addition, Prince Bretislav II con- fiscated all the property of the Jews. Discrimination and persecution occurred during the whole of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It worsened especial- ly after the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 which introduced the infamous anti-Jewish rules which applied to all of Christian Europe in the : prohibition of owning land, prohibition of practicing crafts, reducing Jewish activity to money-lending and , etc. This Council in every sense built walls of the ghettos, both visible and invisible. It ordered the Jews to settle only 7 in certain areas and restricted heavily their relations to . It also intro- duced the mandatory distinctive Jewish dress and other defamatory visible marks. Numerous false stories ascribed to Jews were fabricated and spread around throughout the Christian population. These stories claimed that the Jews desecrated the Host, poisoned the wells of Christians and perpetrated rit- ual murders of Christian babies.

The decided to regulate the situation of the Jews for several reasons which were principally economic and ideological. From the time of their early establishment in Europe, Jewish merchants and the Jewish community as a whole changed from an insignificant group of foreign merchants into a power- ful local competitor of the church which, from the tenth century on was build- ing its secular infrastructure. The inferior status of the Jews was supposed to demonstrate their repudiation as a consequence of their having crucified and rejected the Christian faith. Within a few decades following the Fourth Lateran Council, the Jews found themselves at the margins of society and became absolutely dependent on the will of the ruling nobility who regarded them as their property and servants. Very often the kings and sovereigns offered the Jews a vague legal protection in exchange for high taxes and regular mon- etary services. In the course of the thirteenth century, the nobility in many cases began to compete with the church for power in the secular sphere and realized the importance of financial stability. This resulted in special Jewish legislation in some states (, ) and forced even the church authority to pro- claim certain edicts (The Bull of Pope Innocence IV). The Czech Kingdom was no exception. In 1254 the famous Premysl Otakar II, known as the “King of Iron and Gold,” issued an edict which for the first time declared the legal posi- tion of Czech Jews subject to royal authority. This Royal Charter, amended in 1268 to include also Moravian Jewry, granted the Jews full religious freedom. It also forbade any kind of violence against the Jews and their property which from then on was to be seen as royal property. Any attack on it was to be pun- ished. It permitted no accusation of murder against the Jews nor could there be any forced or desecration of Jewish cemeteries. Jewish com- munities enjoyed independence in self-government. Disputes between Jews and Christians had to be resolved by a specially appointed royal “Jewish Judge.” The price for all of this was annual taxes and special payments and loans upon the request of the king. It is from this that he received his nickname.

The Charter of Premysl Otakar II established the status of the Jews in Czech lands for many centuries. It was reaffirmed by several subsequent sov- ereigns. Even so, they often ignored the written document and acted against its stipulations. Jan Lucembursky (John of Luxembourg), a very important figure in Czech history, imprisoned the Jews and confiscated a considerable amount 8 of their property. Even the “Father of the Homeland,” Charles IV, Jan Lucembursky’s son – who became the first Bohemian king and emperor of the Holy German Empire – had a very ambivalent relationship with Jews. On the one hand he confirmed and even extended the Royal Jewish Charter of Premysl Otakar II; on the other, he did not hesitate to settle his debts on the Jewish account by canceling their bonds or putting them in pawn of royal towns and thus exposing them to pogroms and mistreatment. Anti-Jewish riots broke out in many Bohemian and Moravian towns which echoed similar events in neigh- boring Germany.

The worst pogrom in Prague occurred in 1349 during Easter which that year coincided with the Jewish festival of Passover. Rumor had spread through the town that the Jews attacked the procession carrying the Holy Host and hit it with stones. A furious mob incited by ransacked and looted the Jewish town and massacred almost all of its three thousand inhabitants, including women, elders and babies. Only a few people survived, one of them the famous poet and Rabbi, Avigdor Kara, whose elegy describing this mass murder is recited even now at the Prague Alt-Neu-Schul [the Old-New ] every Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

It was the same Rabbi Avigdor Kara (whose grave is dated as the oldest one at the world famous Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague) who was supposed to have influenced the Hussite movement in the first half of the fifteenth century, a movement which marked Czech history forever. The declared the Hussite a “Judaizing ” and tried by every means to crush it by force. The radical wing of the Hussite movement referring to itself in relation to Mount Tabor identified itself with biblical Israel. This Jewish reference was important to both sides of the conflict. Jews sympathized with the at early stages of the revolt. In 1420, in Prague, the Jews helped the Hussites to build fortification against the crusaders. Recognizing the Church and German invaders as common enemies of themselves and the Jews, the Hussites attempted to free the Jews from the royal and noble discriminatory position by allowing them to practice various crafts (theologian Jakoubek ze Stribra). Despite this attempt, anti-Jewish riots occurred in Prague under the Hussite rule in 1421 and 1422, and some iconoclastic fights left many casualties among Catholics as well as among Jews.

The period of the Hussite movement was also marked by the rise of towns. The newly established bourgeoisie needed commercial and banking services at least to the same extent as the nobility. After being forced to do so by laws which restricted their activities, the Jews were the best experts in that field. During the period of the weak reign of another “invited” dynasty to the Czech 9 throne, the Jagiellonians between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, there were frequent disputes over the control of Jewish affairs with the king, the nobility and the burghers. These disputes resulted in several attempted and real expulsions of the Jews. They also resulted in new charters and the granting of privileges.

This was the situation when Ferdinand I (1526-64) ascended to the Czech throne and began the Hapsburg rule over Bohemia and Moravia. At first he reaffirmed all Jewish privileges and promised to protect all rights of the Jews despite the pressure from nobility and the towns to expel them. In the end, how- ever, he broke all promises and ordered several expulsions which resulted in Jewish migration from the kindgom to and Hungary. Most of the emi- grants were robbed and in many cases they were slaughtered. We should note that Ferdinand’s last decree expelling the Jews in 1563 was cancelled by a direct intervention from Pope Pius IV.

Upon Ferdinand’s death a long period of hardship and insecurity of Jews in Bohemia and Moravia came to an end. They slowly entered a period which is sometimes described as the Golden Age of Czech Jewry. It began with the Emperor Maximilian II who issued an Imperial Charter granting liberty of trade and promised no further expulsions. In 1571 Maximilian, his wife and his court even visited the Jewish Town in Prague and received a rabbinical bless- ing. This was however only an overture. The economic, cultural and social flowering and prosperity of the Jewish community, especially in Prague, cul- minated during the reign of Rudolph II (1576-1611). Rudolph, an eccentric whose hobbies were alchemy and occultism, made Prague Castle his perma- nent seat. He invited a number of scientists, astronomers (Tycho de Brahe), diplomats, alchemists and scholars to his court. Among them were some authentic scientists of the period, others were crooks, charlatans and strange characters. Rudolph also started a unique art which assembled con- temporary masterpieces of painting and sculpture of the Renaissance. For all of this he needed finances. Though he was often bamboozled by false inventors of the “stone of sages” or “artificial gold,” he knew where to turn for assets. He appointed a special financier, one of the first “Court Jews,” Mordechai Maisel, one of the most important figures in the history of the Czech Jewish Communities.

Life in Jewish Bohemia and Moravia flourished in many respects during this period. Prague witnessed a rapid growth in Jewish population and became a center of religious life where many scholars and thinkers resided. The first Hebrew press north of the Alps was established with an excellent typography and ornamentation by the Gersonides family. The Jews were granted liberty of 10 movement and religion. It was this “Rudolphian Age” which produced two significant personalities of its time. As was mentioned Mordechai Maisel was responsible for the financing of the Emperor’s affairs. He was chosen as mayor of the Jewish Town, an independent entity within the municipality of Prague, and was the one who built several synagogues in the ghetto. He also construct- ed the Jewish Town Hall, founded the yeshiva and a hospital, and ordered the paving of the streets in the Jewish Town.

The most outstanding personality in the spiritual and religious life of the community, however, was Rabbi Jehuda Loew ben Becalel known also as the Maharal. This giant among all rabbis who were ever active in Prague was such an enormous authority that even today his works are cited by scholars and the- ologians around the world. As a famous talmudist and scholar in Kabbalah he also attracted the interest of the emperor whose affection for magic was enor- mous. There is a written account of the audience which Rudolph gave to Rabbi Loew that says that they stayed “face to face.” The subject of their discussion remains hidden. Perhaps it is significant that Rabbi Loew became world famous not because of his enormous literary work [some scholars indicate that he was one of the sources of the education thesis of Jan Amos Komensky - Comenius], but as the creator of Golem, the artificial clay figure used as his servant and the protector of the ghetto. Though we cannot find any reference in his works on this subject, Prague became forever connected with this legend. There are also other stories in which Rabbi Loew, the Emperor Rudolph and Mordechai Maisel appear. Every small child knows them because they have been incorporated into the Czech classic Ancient Czech Tales.

Rabbi Loew had many followers. One of them was Rabbi Yom Tov Lippmann Heller who left Bohemia because of his disputes with the leadership of the Prague Jewish Community. He was active in Poland where he became one of the most respected rabbinical authorities. Other important figures dur- ing the time of the Prague Jewish Renaissance included the mathematician and astronomer, David Gans, and the philosopher and physician, Joseph Delmedigo, a disciple of Galileo Galilei at the University of Padua.

As history often shows, a time of stability and development was often fol- lowed by a period of unrest, riots and war. At the beginning of revolt of the Czech Estates in 1618 the mob once again attacked the Jewish Town of Prague. The attack was never investigated or condemned by the authorities. On the con- trary, in a few months the Estates enforced another Jewish expulsion from Prague. The Jewish Community, therefore, did not support the Estates Revolt in 1620. After the , a crucial event in Czech history, Jews were exempted from persecution by the victorious Catholic Hapsburgs. 11

There is a fascinating story connected with the forced recatholicization of the . They could either choose to accept the Catholic faith or leave the country. Several Czech noble families chose a third way – they joined the Jewish Community.

Though the ruling Emperor Ferdinand II did not order any persecution or expulsion of the Jews, he increased their taxes to an enormously unprecedent- ed level. This burden was managed by the Community only because of the help of another significant figure, Jacob Bashevi, who was not only the emperor’s financier but also the first Jew who was raised to noble status as a reward for his services to the Crown. Ferdinand also renewed and extended the privileges of the Community as a result of their payment of taxes in time when the Crown most needed them, e.g., during the Thirty Years War. Covering the expenses of military campaigns, together with the plague epidemic which decimated the town, almost caused a complete exhaustion of the Community. As the Thirty Years War began in Prague (by the so-called ) it also ended in Prague. The Jews of Prague participated significantly in the defense of the city against the Swedes, especially during conflicts on Charles Bridge.

Though the number of Jews in Bohemia and Moravia shrank substantially as a result of the war and the aftermath of epidemics, the second half of the sev- enth century witnessed a new increase in the Jewish population. Many Jews settled in the country after escaping from Poland and the Ukraine, where they had been hit by the pogroms of the Cossacks of Bohdan Chmielnicki. This increase resulted in the first attempts by the authorities to control the size of the Jewish population by various edicts. In addition, the pressure of the Jesuits for forced baptizing (as in the case of Shimon Abeles) or various natural disasters such as floods or fires caused the migration of the Jewish population from towns to countryside. By the end of the century, the Prague Jewish Community formed only about one third of the Jewish population of the Crownlands.

The tendency to control the growth of Jews culminated in 1727 under Charles VI who issued an edict announcing “numerus clausus.” According to this “Familianten Patent” only the oldest son of a Jewish family could marry and the total number of Jewish families in Bohemia could not go beyond 8,541; in Moravia the number was set at 5,106. Though these numbers were amend- ed several times, this law was in fact valid until 1848.

During the reign of Maria-Theresa, the Jews had to face another danger. They were accused of helping the Prussians in the Austro-Prussian wars and were expelled from Prague in 1745. Expulsion from Bohemia was to follow within the next six years, but the order was cancelled by the Empress under the 12 pressure of the town guilds as the general economy of Prague almost collapsed after the Jews left. Approximately 6,000 Jews then resettled in Prague in 1749 and started over. They did so on the condition that they pay 204,000 ducats a year in taxes. This was a sum ten times higher than in 1723.

Though Jewish society interacted with the majority population and was in many ways influenced by it, the Jews were able to preserve autonomy and independence. The Jewish Community conserved for centuries not only its judicial system and its religious laws, but it also retained its traditions and rit- uals. This was all challenged by the Enlightenment. Emperor Joseph II, the son of Maria-Theresa, was an embodiment of the enlightened ruler. His Edict of Tolerance is a milestone in European history. After that Edict, the Jews were no longer restricted in their professions and they could attend any secular school of their choice. The Communities were even supported in founding their own schools which provided general education on the condition that they require the . Jews were also forced to take German names and use them in official communication with the authorities. Jews were subject to the legis- lation of the realm and its legal jurisdiction. Rabbinical courts could act only in religious affairs and family (marital) law.

Despite the growing influence of the Enlightenment, in Bohemia and Moravia remained traditional until the early nineteenth century. Rabbi Yechezkiel Landau (1713-1793), known also as Noda-bi-Yehuda, was a typi- cal example of that conservatism. This is also true of Moses Schreiber, known as Chatam Sofer (1762-1839), who started his career in Moravia (Prostejov) and became the most respected rabbinical authority in , . These supporters of orthodoxy very often clashed with advocates of the Enlightenment (in Hebrew “haskalah”) who stressed the need of universal edu- cation as a means to Jewish emancipation. The central figure of these efforts was the Chief Rabbi of Prague Solomon Judah Rapoport (1790-1867).

It was only in 1848 that the Jews were granted equal rights with the others by the new Austrian constitution. Subsequent to this, several laws were passed securing freedom of movement, freedom of economic activity, etc. The process of full emancipation was completed in 1867 by the adoption of the new Constitution of the new Austro-Hungarian Empire. While there was at this time a remarkable development of the Jewish community and a swift integration of Jewish individuals into every level of the dominant society, there was also a new wave of anti-Semitism. The main reason or excuse given for this was the fact that the Jews were communicating mostly in the German language. Czech nationalists who were fighting within the Austro-Hungarian dual political sys- tem for independence accused the Jews of being supporters of the German ele- 13 ment and anti-Czech activists.

At that time Jewish society started to lose its unity. In the religious sphere there were the supporters of orthodoxy on the one hand, and on the other those who agitated for reformed Judaism. The founder of American Reform, Isaac Mayer Weiss [Wise] came from a western-Bohemian village called Radnice by Pilsen where he had to “escape justice” because he broke the “Familanten Patent” when it was still in force and let his second son marry. In the cultural sphere there were even three streams of Judaism emerging: the advocates of German culture, representatives of the Czech-Jewish movement and the Zionists. It is said that the principle work of the founder of , the Viennese journalist Theodor Herzl “Alt-Neu-Land” [Old-New country] was inspired by the Prague Old-New Synagogue.

This was the time of the famous “melting pot of cultures,” especially in Prague. It produced many famous people: , , , the “fierce reporter” and founder of investigative journalism Egon Erwin Kisch, and also Sigmund Freud, and – all of them originally natives of Moravian towns.

Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, who became the first President of Czechoslovakia in 1918, distinguished himself early on in his professional career as philosophy professor at . During the so-called Hilsner trial (a blood-liable trial which gave rise to sentiments similar to those in the Dreyfuss affair) he became known as a strong advocate of the accused Hilsner and for his overall condemnation of anti-Semitism. General disagree- ment with his actions, especially from his students, was for him such a disap- pointment that he chose to leave the country for the United States. Later he tried to find support of the idea to establish Czechoslovakia on the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after the First World War was over. With the help of Judge Brandeis, whose parents immigrated to the United States from Bohemia, he gained support for this idea from President Woodrow Wilson.

The life of Tomas Masaryk is well known. When Czechoslovakia was established on October 28, 1918, he became its first president. What may be less well known is that as president he was greeted upon his arrival in Prague by its Mayor, Mr. Baxa, who was one of his strongest opponents in the Hilsner affair. Mr. Masaryk later became the first president of any state to visit Palestine.

During the existence of the so-called First Czechoslovak Republic (1918- 1938), the Jews enjoyed unprecedented freedom, equality and safety. 14

Czechoslovakia’s Jewish population numbered 350,000 by 1930, of which 120,000 lived in Bohemia and Moravia, 120,000 in Slovakia and the remain- der resided in sub-Carpathian Ruthenia. After 1933 the Jewish population rose to more than 400,000 – due to the influx of German Jews who escaped after Hitler took power – and they viewed rightfully Czechoslovakia as the island of freedom and democracy in the Europe of that time.

The Holocaust meant absolute disaster for Czech Jewry. It started at first in Europe with the expulsion of the Jewish population from the Sudeten- German regions after the Appeasement in 1938. It ended at last by dis- closing the Terezin concentration camp in the fall of 1945 after the typhoid epi- demic. Only about 30,000 Jews started to recreate Jewish life in Bohemia and Moravia in 1945/1946. Within a few years they had to face another threat when the Communists seized power in February 1948. Those who stayed in the country (immigration to Israel was possible for some time) went through an anti-Semitic period marked by the so-called Slansky trial in the early 1950s. They enjoyed some freedom in the late 1960s, but this ended with the Soviet- led invasion in August 1968. Many Jews left the country at that time. Freedom was completely eradicated by the Communist “normalization” led by the Husak regime. It was only the in November 1989 that brought freedom to Czech society and to its Jewish Community.

II. Contemporary Situation

In one of his first speeches as President of Czechoslovakia, given on New Years Day 1990, Vaclav Havel addressed several issues which were of utmost concern to the Czech Jewish community. These were the issues of the reestab- lishing of diplomatic relations with Israel (broken in 1967 after the Six-Days War) and the restitution of property, including Jewish property. President Havel became one of the most dynamic advocates in this process even though his strong moral appeal was not always heard. Jewish issues were brought to the public and gained an enormous sympathy and support from wide circles of the population. There were many reasons for this, especially the fact that some prominent Jewish personalities had helped to overthrow communism. The image of the Jews as victims of the Holocaust, which could never be mentioned for a period of the previous twenty years, played a substantial part as well.

The process of restitution of Jewish real estate began in 1992 before the division of Czechoslovakia. At that time, the Federation of Jewish communi- ties in the Czech Republic assembled approximately 1,000 records related to communal Jewish property, i.e., real estate owned by Jewish Communities and 15 by other Jewish institutions (foundations, unions, clubs, etc.) throughout Bohemia and Moravia. After careful evaluation, the final list included 202 items since most of the buildings and lots were not claimed for various reasons. For instance, many synagogues were given over – with the consent of Jewish Community leaders – to mostly Protestant Christian churches during the post- war period. These Jewish leaders were aware of the impossibility of recovering Jewish life in most of the 153 pre-war Jewish communities and preferred to keep religious services in the buildings instead of having them be converted into warehouses. Also, many lots had been covered by the building of roads and other infrastructure over the decades. The final list of 202 items, however, formed only a part of the list that was submitted to the Czech Parliament because the country was split in 1993. The bill included another two parts: the return of the State Jewish Museum and a draft of legislation that would allow individual Jews to claim property.

Parliament rejected the bill as a whole in February 1994 referring to a law passed in 1991 which transferred some of the state property to municipal authorities. The argument for the rejection was that if the proposed list became law it would have meant an expropriation similar to Communist practices. Shortly after the rejection of the bill the representatives of the Federation of Jewish communities met Vaclav Klaus, who was Prime Minister at that time. The Prime Minister suggested that other ways be found to solve this problem. He released an appeal to respective municipalities to return Jewish property without a law being written to do so. A similar appeal was signed by all three leaders of the ruling coalition parties. At the same time, the Prime Minister assured the federation that everything owned currently by the state would be returned. He promised that the remaining two issues would be resolved quick- ly.

In June 1994 a law was adopted by the Czech Parliament extending the existing individual private restitution legislation for claimants who lost their properties between 1938 and 1945 and were not able or successful in getting them back by 1948 because of the Communist coup d’état. The law set a term limit for the claims which was subsequently extended several times. (The last amendment was made possible thanks to the verdict of the Constitutional Court that abolished the condition that required that the claimant had to have perma- nent residency in the Czech Republic. It extended the term to 1996.) Though many individuals were successful in recovering their ownership many cases still have not been concluded. This was true in the cases where court proceed- ing were necessary or where, unfortunately, the court ruling went against the philosophy of the legislation stressing more technical details rather than a moral and just settlement. In addition, the legislation did not apply to two large 16 groups, people who were not Czech citizens and to the former owners of agri- cultural properties. Also, a vast number of heirless individual properties was never even discussed. In general, however, it can be said that the first section of the bill drafted by the Czech Jewish Federation in 1994 was fulfilled.

The second part was completely successful when, in October 1994, the State Jewish Museum ceased to exist and instead a new institution, the Jewish Museum in Prague, was established. The founders of this new agency were the Federation of Jewish Communities which regained the ownership of the vast majority of Judaica collections from the museum, the Prague Jewish Community as the old-new owner of the buildings – mostly synagogues hous- ing the exhibits – and the Czech Ministry of culture that kept the possession of a marginal part of the Judaica collection assembled since 1950 when the muse- um was nationalized. Together these three subjects have launched an institution which was able in a very limited time frame to change the entire image and work of the Jewish Museum, making it one of the most important and suc- cessful operations in the country.

The development of the third part of the original bill was less satisfactory. In March and May 1994, the Czech Government under Prime Minister Klaus decided to return all properties then owned by the state. This happened with all but a few exceptions. The state-owned properties, however, formed only about one quarter of the original 202 items on the list. The rest was privatized either by endorsing the ownership of town municipalities or by privatization projects which legally transferred the real estate to private companies. The non-exis- tence of a law exposed the Federation and the individual Jewish Communities to long and complicated negotiations which were not always successful. By mid-1997 less than half of the items claimed in the original list were given back to individual Jewish communities in the country.

The situation of the Jewish restitution brings to mind a Talmudic image of a half-filled cup. Optimists would say it was half full; the pessimists would say it was half empty. The truth is that thanks to the limited return of property some Czech Jewish Communities were able to build a base for their future develop- ment. Unfortunately, along with the buildings they also inherited debts that had accumulated over a fifty-year period. No one had invested in those properties and in many cases they had literally fallen apart. This created a need for com- pleting the process by either returning the properties to the communities and/or compensating them for those not returned, so that the Jewish Communities could invest and continue their efforts to restore and revive the Jewish life of the country. 17

In early 1998, the federation initiated new negotiations with the cabinet of Prime Minister Tosovsky whose government was not able to deal, however, with this issue because of its short mandate during the interim prior to elec- tions. The Social Democratic Party went into the election campaign with the restitution of Jewish properties as one of its campaign priorities. After winning the election, this objective was included in the agenda of the Social Democratic Government. This activity coincided with the global effort to recover Holocaust Era assets all around the world. It culminated in the conference held in Washington in early December 1998.

In January 1999 the Czech government decided to establish a “Joint Commission for Mitigating Some of the Injustice Caused to Holocaust Victims” in order to deal with all issues concerning Jewish properties and assets. This commission was headed by Vice Prime Minister Pavel Rychhetsky and consisted of representatives of the Czech state and the Federation of Jewish Communities. They also invited foreign participants such as the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO). The commission formed three working sub-committees. The first dealt with legislation and unsolved individual restitution; the second focused on Jewish communal properties; the third searched the archives to discover the fate of looted art, bank accounts, insurance and other valuables. The commis- sion proposed to the Czech government several legislative steps, governmental actions and rulings that would lead to rectifying the injustice caused to the Czech Jewish population during World War II and which was exacerbated dur- ing the decades of the communist regime. The work of this commission result- ed in the publication of a report on Nazi-looted Jewish gold and jewelry and discovered that part of the Red Army war loot is still in Moscow.

In cases of individual restitution, the commission has stated that the legis- lation which was valid until August 1996 enabled a number of claimants to reclaim their or their family’s possessions. The commission was at the same time fully aware of the fact that the approach of various courts was not always favorable to the claimants and in many cases made very rigid judgments. The commission, however, could not interfere with independent justice or verdicts of individual courts. In this sense the commission noted with satisfaction that the Constitutional Court has issued several verdicts which reinforced basic jus- tice.

The same law enables the government to issue an order that would trans- fer real estate ownership from state institutions to the federation and to indi- vidual Jewish communities. As of September 2001, the final list is in the process of being discussed with respective authorities and is due to be approved 18 by the end of 2002.

Though the commission found the restitution legislation appropriate, it focused on two groups of claimants whose claims could not be raised: former owners of agricultural land and claimants without Czech citizenship. The com- mission has submitted the draft of a law to the government which would enable the first group to raise respective claims. This law was approved by the Czech Parliament in June 2000 and promulgated in the Collection of Laws under Number 212/2000. As with other legislation regarding restitution, claimants who have Czech citizenship could approach the owners of properties. If the owners were not prepared to return the property, the matter had to be taken to court. The deadline for claims regarding agricultural property was June 6, 2001.

The law also enabled the return of art works that were possessed by state institutions such as galleries and museums even when the claimants were not Czech citizens. These claims had to be addressed directly to the respective institutions possessing the art works. There is no obligation for the claimant to possess Czech citizenship. The deadline for claims is the end of 2002. This was a breakthrough in Czech legislation. It should be noted that the Czech govern- ment was the first among European nations to issue such legislation.

For claimants without Czech citizenship an “extra-legislative” solution was prepared by the commission. In keeping with this solution the Czech gov- ernment transferred a sum of 300 million CZK (approximately $750,000 U.S.) to the “Holocaust Victims Foundation” which was established by the federation with the participation of the government. This foundation reserved approxi- mately one third of the sum for those who lost their property which in 1938- 1945 was located in what is today the Czech Republic; property for which they could not recover ownership after 1990 for legal reasons. This also applied to the heirs of the property. The Holocaust Victim Foundation assembled all claims which had not been compensated for and would have met the conditions required by Czech laws that had already expired. For example, laws which were based on bilateral agreements concluded by Czechoslovakia and other countries which compensated for property that had been nationalized. Unlike the legislation, the condition which required Czech citizenship was not required by the foundation’s regulations. The deadline for submitting applica- tions was December 3l, 2001.

After evaluating the quantity and quality of claims the foundation would grant every claimant a financial sum. This sum was not considered as compen- sation but rather as a symbolic gesture. The Federation considers it necessary 19 that the satisfaction of those persons reflect the respective value of the lost property. This is particularly difficult in a situation where neither the total number of claims nor the value of the claimed properties is known. It is impos- sible, therefore, to estimate a total financial sum needed for the compensation. To attempt this would potentially make a caricature of the original purpose of the Czech government in giving this money in trying to atone for the injustice caused to Holocaust victims. The Federation considers the sum which has been given a type of advanced payment that should be increased eventually after the final evaluation of all claims.

After consultation with its partners (the AJC and the WJRO), the Federation concluded that at least two-thirds of the sum (200 million CZK) given by the government to the federation can be considered – given the pres- ent capabilities of the Czech state – an acceptable form of partial compensation for Jewish communal property which is presently owned by the state and can not be returned to the Jewish Communities. This sum could at least help to solve some of the tasks which the Jewish Communities, united at the federa- tion level, cannot handle sufficiently today. These needs are mainly in the area of social care for Holocaust survivors and educational programs and projects for the preservation of Jewish monuments and cemeteries in the territory of the Czech Republic.

The sub-committee of the Joint Commission dealing with communal prop- erties assembled numerous materials from state and municipal archives. It con- cluded that prior to 1938 Jewish Communities and other Jewish legal entities possessed approximately 1,500 pieces of real estate such as cemeteries, syna- gogues, plots of land and communal buildings. Many of these were destroyed during World War II and during the decades of Communism which followed. Many have been privatized or taken by municipalities after 1990. There are, however, still several dozens of those which are in possession of the state. A full report focusing on the structure and types of real estate will be published in 2002. This historical research has served also as a base for the government decree which should return a selected number of state-owned properties to Czech Jewish Communities. This is expected to occur by the end of 2002 and to be used for further negotiations about respective compensation.

Sources

Jewish Sights of Bohemia and Moravia, Sefer, 1991 20

THE CATHOLIC TRADITION

by

DOMINIK DUKA, O.P.

As is the case in most European countries, the beginnings of our culture are connected with Christianization. The earliest reference to these beginnings that has come down to us is a letter written at the end of the fourth century by Fritigilda, queen of the Marcomans, to St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, in which she asks for instructions on how to baptize adults in the territory of Bohemia. Historians place the seat of her rule in Zbraslav near Prague1. The first mention of a baptism comes from the Regensburg Annals which record the baptism of 14 Czech chieftains in A.D. 845. The start of the real Christianization of our country, especially from the cultural perspective, is considered to be the com- ing of the Slavic Cyril and Methodius from Byzantium in A.D. 863. They were students at Constantinople’s famous cathedral school of the Church of the Holy Apostles, where the superior was Photius who later became patriarch. Their arrival is connected with the translation of the into the Old Slavonic language for which Constantine-Cyril invented a new alphabet (Glagolitic), which was later simplified into Cyrillic by his disciples. St. Methodius also translated a codex of law.

Christianization connects religious, educational, cultural, and legal levels of – everything needed for creating a cultural and civilizational set- ting. With the acceptance of the Christianity of Cyril and Methodius we entered the history of Europe. Of course, I must mention that Christianity entered our country in the eighth and ninth centuries in three streams: the Irish-Scottish mission, the effort of the Frankish Empire, and the spread of Slavonic Christianity from the Great Moravian Empire. It is the Irish-Scottish mission which re-Christianized western Europe after the great Migration of Peoples in the period after the decline of the western part of the Roman Empire. What is interesting is that next to Old Slavonic Velehrad in the town Modrá, a small church of the Irish-Scottish mission from the eighth century has been discov- ered, according to Professor Cibulka, one of the great experts on this mission.

Besides the Irish-Scottish independent monastic mission, there also was the effort of the Frankish Empire, including Regensburg, which has already been mentioned, to whose ecclesiastical jurisdiction the area of Bohemia would belong. Slavonic Christianity came to Bohemia from the Great 21

Moravian Empire in connection with the baptism of the Duke Borˇivoj and his wife St. Ludmila.

Reminders of the Christianity of Cyril and Methodius are found in the churches devoted to St. Clement and also in the Slavonic monastery at Sázava to the east of Prague, a cradle of the Old Slavonic culture and liturgy and a link to Kiev, the capital of Kievan . The mission of Cyril and Methodius also has one more important aspect. The holy brothers traveled to Rome to meet with the pope, who approved their translations and placed the whole area of their mission under his own jurisdiction. St. Cyril remained in Rome, where he is buried in the basilica of St. Clement. St. Methodius, with the title of arch- bishop, went back to Moravia alone. Frankish bishops imprisoned him in Elwangen. We can understand this imprisonment above all in the historical context when we realize how revolutionary the pope’s decision was. Byzantium always spread Christianity through governmental hegemony. The emperor considered himself to be the successor of Jesus Christ and accepting Christianity meant accepting the emperor’s sovereignty. In the western Christian world after the reform of the state took control of church administration. The political position and power of bishops grew, but they became administrative officials of the emperor. The mission of Cyril and Methodius in our country created not only a new territorial administration of the church but also disrupted the connection of the power of the state and church. In this decision of the pope we can see the roots of the coming strug- gle over investiture in the western church. It was a misunderstanding when modern historians saw this struggle above all as church interference into the matters of political power. In fact, we can perceive the Cyril and Methodius mission as a struggle for religious freedom, a return as it were to the way Christianity was before the time of Emperor Constantine.

From the political viewpoint, we can follow the first steps in the formation of central Europe. St. Wenceslas, the Czech ruler and grandson of Borˇivoj and St. Ludmila, deepened the Christianity of Cyril and Methodius with both his attitude toward Christianization and his martyrdom. He thus laid a new foun- dation for the . St. Wenceslas was not only a warrior, as was suitable for a feudal lord of the , but also someone who could read and write. The faith is not spread through violence, but itself suffers vio- lence. The blood of martyrs is the seed of Christianity. It is a matter for histo- rians to distinguish between historical reality and the St. Wenceslas tradition, which will always influence the religious life and the of our country. This idea or concept of the mission continued within a completely Christianity in the works of the Prague bishop, St. Adalbert (Vojteˇch), a martyr claimed as a patron by all the nations of central 22

Europe. St. Adalbert did his studies at the cathedral school in Magdeburg, one of the places beyond the Alps with a high level of education. This great European intellectual visited Rome and its spiritual and intellectual centers. The reformed Benedictine monasteries would become his home. A bishop and a monk, he brought this new dimension of Christianity to Bohemia where he founded the first Benedictine monastery at Brˇevnov in Prague. St. Adalbert can be viewed as a protector of Polish and Hungarian statehood. Rejection of his efforts in Bohemia led to a cultural and political setback which lasted for sev- eral centuries. This tragic element of Czech history is a pattern that has been repeated several times.

The period of the early Middle Ages brought about the first structures within the church connected with the development of our national culture. The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the time of the last Prˇemyslides and the Luxemburgs, was a period of new Christianization which began with coloniza- tion, in which most merits belong to the as well as to the and the . The second half of the thirteenth cen- tury saw the appearance in our country of the first mendicants – the , the Dominicans, and the . The houses of these orders in the newly founded cities approached Christianization, which called for a personal response from the believer. In the culture of the , which was half way through the period of the Middle Ages in our country, we meet saints like St. Agnes of Bohemia or St. Zdislava. The system of monastery schools and cathedral schools developed, and thus an original Latin religious culture was born. Besides chronicles there were the of Kunhuta, leg- ends, and apocryphal stories. In the Dominican context there is the “Passion of Kunhuta” by Fra Kolda of Koldice or the “Legend of St. Agnes” by Fra Domoslav, the original author of the song Jezu Kriste, sˇte˘dr´ykne˘zˇe [Oh, Jesus Christ, generous priest].

The rule of Charles IV and the founding of Charles University introduce the emancipation of Czech national culture. Both the Dominicans and the Augustinians of Kladruby were mainly Czech, while the Dominican remained open to other nationalities. The dominant figure of this time was Fra Jan Moravec, the advisor and confessor of Emperor Charles IV. We can also attribute to him the main portion of the first Czech Bible which came from the Dominican of St. Clement in Prague and was designed for Anna Leskovicová, the subprioress of the Dominican sisters at St. Ann in Prague. This origin can be detected in the name of the oldest codex, Bible dráˇzd’ansko- leskovecké [Bible of Dresden-Leskovec], which was followed by the Ceskˇ y´pas- sionál [The Czech Passion] and also the translation of the Zlatá legenda (Legenda Aurea) [The Golden Legend] by the Dominican James of Voragine. 23

This collection of biographies of the saints is completed with Czech saints and thus became a very important source for forming an original Czech piety and devotional life. It is not just by mere chance that right in this period, thanks to Charles IV, the tradition of St. Wenceslas reached its fullest formation and, as if long forgotten, devotion to Cyril and Methodius moved to the foreground with the invitation of Slavic monks to Prague and the founding of the Slavic rite Emmaus Monastery “na Slovanech” [at the place of the ] in Prague. The raising of the Prague diocese to the rank of an archdiocese, together with the founding the Charles University, once again made Bohemia into a center of mission and .

The medieval Czech translation of the Bible became a basis for other Slavic translations. The first of these was the Polish Bible of Queen . The so-called Bible of Wenceslas, the first complete German translation of the Bible, also appeared in Prague. This Bible is famous among specialists espe- cially for its illustrations. Caroline Prague became a crossroads not only of reli- gious history but also of political and . That is also why reform- ing theologians who are seen as precursors of Master found their place in Prague. They included Conrad Waldhauser, Matthias of Genoa, and Jan Milicˇ of Krome˘ˇír zˇ. General lack of knowledge causes the Dominican Master Fra Henry of Bitterfeld to be frequently omitted from this list. He was the con- fessor of Jan of Jensˇtejn. He enriched the Hussite movement with devotion to the . He was revolutionary not only in the matters of early and frequent Communion but especially in his rejection of the Augustinian- Platonic conception of marriage which required the couple to abstain from the marital act before receiving Holy Communion. In this context we should also mention a lay theologian, Thomas Stítny´ of Stítny,´ who belonged to this group of reformers.

I would like to mention the question of Master Jan Hus and the Hussite movement in connection with the Hus Symposium, which took place in the Jubilee year 2000 at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome and which shed new light on many problems. The movement itself cannot be understood sim- ply as an effort for religious freedom or the freedom of conscience. Doing so would diminish its real interest in reform and its contribution to spreading the Czech Bible and use of the national language for the liturgy. The irreconcilable stance of the Hussite movement against its adversaries led finally to a deep cri- sis and decline both of the state and religious life.

We can judge positively the great efforts for peaceful and conciliatory res- olution of religious coexistence both during the reign of George of Pode˘brady, when we speak about a people of two religions, and in the Hapsburg era, when 24 the Imperial Charter of Emperor Rudolf determined the norms for coexistence of religious confessions in the .

The rebellion of the Estates and the Thirty Years War forced full applica- tion of the immoral principle of the Augsburg Diet: “The religion of the ruler is the religion of the ruled” (Cuius regio, illius religio). The Catholic victory at Bilá Hora in 1620 brought with it a discussion about the form of renewing Catholicism in the Hapsburg domains. On one side were the victorious nobili- ty and the Jesuit fathers who preferred a radical approach. On the other side were those who favored a moderate strategy. The moderate side included the historical orders – the Benedictines, the Augustinians, the Dominicans, and the Capuchins – together with the Prague archbishop Cardinal Harrach, the papal nuncio Cardinal Caraffa, and Father Valerian Magni, the European scholar, philosopher, and theologian. The radical wing prevailed, and so a large part of Protestant nobility had to leave the country. That was the period when American immigrants offered the office of rector to Jan Amos Komensky at the newly established Harvard University.

The period after the Battle of Bilá Hora can be called the Jesuit period. It is closely connected with baroque culture, which transformed the face of the Czech countryside. Architecture, painting, sculpture, music, and poetry could be found in Jesuit colleges and academies, as well as in middle-sized country farmsteads.

Bible translation is decisive for each important stage of Christian culture. Jesuits Jirˇi Konstanc, Mate˘j Václav Stayer, and Jan Barner published a new baroque translation of the Bible, which was started by Archbishop Ferdinand Sobek of Bilenberk and finished during the term of Archbishop Jan Bedrˇich of Valdsˇtejn. It was inspired by the new publication of the so-called Tridentine Sixto-Clementine Vulgate, which represents the peak of sixteenth century Scripture studies. This so-called St. Wenceslas Bible became a worthy contin- uation of line of Czech to which the Kralice Bible certainly belongs.

Baroque Prague had two universities. Besides the Charles University, the Jesuits founded the Ferdinand University (Clementinum) on the ruins of the old Dominican general house of studies at St. Clement which had been destroyed by the Hussites. Czech Jesuits contributed to the work of extending the by publishing a Czech grammar. In addition to Obrana jazyka cˇeského [The Defense of the Czech Language], Bohuslav Balbín also published studies and monographs on Czech saints. The Kadlinsky Hymnal became the basis for baroque religious hymns in Czech churches. Václav Michna of 25

Otradovice was then able to follow in this tradition. Some of the finest baroque poetry are the verses of Bridel.

The eighteenth century is called the . It brought the so-called Josephine reforms of Emperor Joseph II, which delivered an excep- tionally harsh blow to monasteries, the centers of baroque culture and devotion, and which, by introducing widespread use of German, harmed the development of Czech culture and language. On the opposite side, the creation of a pastoral network of parishes with the setting of exact parameters can be viewed as a positive development. The shackling of the church by the state, together with the element of Germanization, meant a definite stigma in the future for the church because it would come to be viewed as a tool of the nationally estranged state. The patent of which brought a certain measure of freedom to Protestants and the Orthodox was not only a result of the Enlightenment but also a political necessity, because the neighboring state of Protestant Prussia supported revolts of the Protestant population and that, together with Prussian military attacks, presented serious danger to the Hapsburg monarchy. The movement arose as a reaction to Germanization. For the most part, it is priests who stand out in the beginnings of the Czech national revival. The first university department of the Czech language was founded by Canon Tajchl in the seminary for training priests in Hradec Králové. J. L. Ziegler, a priest, a writer, and a founder of peoples’ parish libraries, also taught in the seminary Czech department.

The Josephinist union of church and state became the target of frequent attacks, and the church was charged with antinational attitudes. From the other side during the Josephinist era, a certain Vavák, the mayor of the village of Miletín u Horˇic, who was a countryside leader of the national revival and a Bible reader, charged Czech Protestants with betrayal of the nation because Prussian supremacy would lead to total Germanization.

The revolutionary year 1848 also brought attempts by the church to get rid of the shackles of the Josephine reforms. The outcome was the Concordat of 1855. A radical change came with the Austrian-Hungarian settlement in 1867 when liberals from both Vienna and Budapest proclaimed the Czech represen- tatives to be bigoted Catholics. The Czech demand for a tripartite Austrian- Hungarian-Czech division of the monarchy was never realized. As a reaction the young Czech intelligentsia founded the liberal political party of the Young Czechs, which announced the struggle to Vienna and Rome.

Beginning in 1867 the historical churches within the monarchy were grant- ed full equality. The so-called priviliged position of the Catholic church was 26 only a social survival of formality and habit supported by the attitude of the emperor himself.

At the beginning of the twentieth century an estrangement developed between the Catholic Church and both the Czech intelligentsia and the Czech working classes. The church had to face the growth of nationalism and the strong pressure of modernism. Understandably, this led to a clash between priests and teachers in their struggle over the explanation of history as well as over the problem of the rapid development of natural science in relation to bib- lical cosmology. At the same time Czech Scripture studies cannot be accused of diletantism. The new Hejcˇl Bible translation with its large exegesis repre- sents one of the high points of Czech Scripture studies. Vincent Zapletal, a Moravian Dominican, a follower of the Vienna School and a professor in Fribourg, Switzerland, belongs together with Father J. M. Lagrange, O.P., to the most prominent Catholic Scripture scholars of this time. The exegesis of Genesis and the first Bible text of Father Zapletal, together with his Hebrew textbook, are eloquent proof of his competence. Despite all the respect we feel towards Thomas G. Masaryk, the first president of the Republic of Czechoslovakia, we must say that his Ceskˇ á otázka (The Czech Question) and his uncritical support of liberal teachers belong among the weaker sides of his work. Ferdinand Peroutka demonstrated the lack of his- toricity of “The Czech Question” in his Cesˇ ˇi, jací jsou [The Czechs, What They Are Like]. We must realize that in the schools there stood, side-by-side, a university-educated priest next to a catechist and a teacher, who both had lesser, secondary school educations.

After during the period of the First Republic, the Catholic Church stepped out onto completely unknown ground. Arguments about mod- ernism and nationalistic tendencies led to the foundation of the National Czechoslovak Church. Understandably, the new state was not neutral regarding the new church. Rejection of monarchy was connected with rejection of aris- tocracy, which resulted in appointing new bishops who came mainly from the middle class. The new bishops were closer to the people but lacked their own ecclesiastical and political strategy. Christian political parties tried to fill in for this lack, which led to a certain political clericalism. The status of the church partially changed, thanks to the work of the Dominicans, the Jesuits, and the Franciscans. The mendicants assumed a pro-French orientation. It was pre- cisely in France that the church had to find its relationship to the French repub- lic.

Father D. H. Lacordaire, O.P., was an especially great preacher. Thanks to the Stará rˇísˇe publisher, Josef Florián, the pro-French orientation opened the 27 way for authors of the renouveau catholique (Claudel, Mauriac, Bernanos, J.Green, etc.). At the same time, literature with a pro-Catholic orientation appeared. These were the poets Rencˇ, Zahradnícˇek, and Bochorˇák, and the novelist Jaroslav Durych. In the thirties the government of the First Republic began to see the church as an ally against the danger of Adolf Hitler and his admirers in Czechoslovakia. The first and only assembly of the Czech Catholics in Prague in 1935 is a witness to the fact. However, the dissatisfac- tion of Catholic intellectuals with the policy of the First Republic showed itself tragically after Munich in the time of the one-year so-called Second Republic in the year 1938.

In the era of the Nazi occupation the church remained loyal to the Czechoslovak Republic. The great number of priests, men religious, and women religious who were imprisoned and died in concentration camps is a witness to this loyalty. Many priests worked in the foreign resistance move- ment; two of them were members of the London cabinet. The priest Monsignor Srˇ ámek even became prime minister. Cardinal Kasˇpar, the archbishop of Prague, became a symbol of the national resistance. At his funeral in 1941 all bishops and faithful from the whole area of former Czechoslovakia came to Prague (from Bohemia, Moravia, , Slovakia, and Sub-Carpathian Ukraine).

After World War II in the short period of limited freedom before the com- munist coup of 1948, the church entered social life under the new conditions with a considerable respect. New bishops were widely supported and political- ly recognized. Both Archbishop Beran of Prague and Bishop Trochta of Litome˘rˇice had come back from concentration camps. The renewed religious life created living spiritual centers in , , and Prague. Once again the magazines Na Hlubinu, Filosofická revue, and in Brno Jitro and Akord began to be published again. The Jesuit Father Kajpr began to publish a maga- zine in Prague called Katolík [The Catholic], designed for the Catholic intelli- gentsia. The name itself showed the new pride of Czech Catholicism. Akademické t´ydny [Academic Weeks], famous for their openness and ecu- menism, continued under the leadership of Father M. Metode˘j Habánˇ, O.P., and Father Silvester Braito, O.P.

The communist coup and the years of the fifties which followed it totally destroyed religious and cultural life in our country. The political trials began shortly after February 1948. Dr. Metode˘j Habánˇ, O.P., was among the first to be sentenced. The famous show trial called Spiknutí proti republice [Conspiracy Against the Republic] was conducted in 1950 at the same time as the trial of Milada Horáková, J.D., the first woman to be executed. These show 28 trials with religious and bishops were a signal of the imminent elimination of monasteries and houses of men religious and the imprisonment or internment of the bishops of dioceses. After that diocesan priests and active lay people were also persecuted. Hundreds of thousands of people were imprisoned. Many were not imprisoned simply for their participation in the Catholic church or active religious life but also for their activities in other organizations such as Orel and the Scouts. Diocesan seminaries and theological faculties were closed. Magazines and publishing houses were destroyed. Church life was restricted to the minimum and in essence the church was destined for genocide. In spite of that, life did not stop. In prisons and labor camps many continued their studies and were ordained priests. In prison the best of twentieth century Czech poetry was also created – verses of Rencˇ, Zahradnícˇek, and Rotrekl. So, too, the lectures of Dr. Ru˚zˇena Vacková on the history of art were written.

The priests were officially educated only in Litome˘rˇice (about twenty stu- dents a year for all the dioceses of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia). In this peri- od there were also traitors who founded the so-called Peace Movement of Catholic Priests and the so-called Catholic Action, which was supposed to lead respectable Catholic lay people into becoming collaborators. After their return from the prison, most priests and religious worked in factories and other secu- lar jobs. Sisters were placed in factories in the border areas and later in mental homes and other state institutions as nurses under constant surveillance by the secret police or its informers. We could speak about a certain form of intern- ment, but of course there was no way to accept novices.

The Prague Spring, called the Dubcˇek era, was a short period to catch one’s breath again. During the years 1968-69 parish administration experi- enced a revival. Large numbers of priests came back from their secular jobs. Men religious were able to create mini-communities in rectories and accept candidates. So too women religious were able to revive their communities with new vocations. A certain amount of freedom helped to restore publishing activ- ities. In Olomouc, Moravia, a second seminary was opened. The Dílo koncilní obnovy [The Work of Conciliar Renewal] was founded during a pilgrimage to Velehrad. In these years it was also possible to carry out the reform of the litur- gy, and liturgical books were published in Czech together with new unified hymnals. Two new religious buildings also appeared in Moravia, in Senetárˇov and Jedovnice. Musical composers Petr Eben and Zdeneˇk Pololáník also con- tributed to religious works, and Mgr. Josef Olejník emerged from the illegal underground church. Poets Rencˇ and Rotrekl were released from prison. Historian Kalista published his biography of St. Zdislava and prepared his study Tvárˇ baroka [The Face of the Baroque] for publication. The verses of Zahradnícˇek and writings of Durych were published posthumously. 29

This short period of limited religious freedom ended with the onset of the Husák regime, which tried uncompromisingly to push the religious life back within the old limits where it had functioned before the Prague Spring. The for- mer Peace Movement of Catholic Priests was called back to life under a new name, Pacem in terris. Since lay people no longer were the great threat they had been in the fifties, they were only being intimidated with harassment. The mood of the church community is expressed in a study, O umírající církve [About the Dying Church], written by Dr. Oto Mádr, which was published by samizdat. He was inspired by the Ksˇaftem umírající jednoty bratrské [The Testament of the Dying Unity of the Brethern] by Jan Amos Komensky´.

Thanks to Franciscan Father Baptist Bárta, there were still orders who did not want to surrender to the threat of being sentenced to death and, in the spir- it of the Prague Spring, they continued to create illegal underground mini-com- munities by accepting new vocations of men and women and developing secret theology study groups with foreign support from Poland and the former East Germany. The appearance of Charter 77 in January 1977 was followed in February by the secret constituting of a Conference of Major Religious Superiors which issued a proclamation about the genocide of religious life, church life, and the life of religious communities in Czechoslovakia. The regime reacted in 1978 with the trials of men religious. This raising of heads also reawakened the 1968 activists Dr. Josef Zve˘rˇina, Dr. Oto Mádr, and Václav Vasˇko, who began new illegal underground activities. These activities were linked, through the Salesians, to other religious orders who were also involved. In this way a broad community of people was created who once again could discover a living church. The persecution culminated in 1981-83 when, it was also directed not only at charter signatories but also members of reli- gious orders, and especially against Franciscans and Dominicans, who were persecuted together with the lay people working in illegal samizdat publishing in Olomouc and Brno. There the Jesuit Frantisˇek Lízna played a very impor- tant role.

The pilgrimage to Velehrad in 1985 became a new signal for resistence and the fight for freedom. A quarter of a million believers of Czechoslovakia called for freedom and proclaimed their unwillingness to collaborate with the com- munist regime. There followed a manifesto written by Dr.Václav Benda, a Charter signatory, an active Catholice and the chairman of VONS (Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Persecuted). It was called Jak dál po Velehrade˘ [How to Continue after Velehrad]2. In this document, he leaves the care of the spiritual life to priests, and to lay believers he gives the duty “to take up the ” if there is need. He became a symbol of resistance against the dictator- ship of communism in all nations and confessions. In this atmosphere, com- 30 mittees were also created to support Cardinal Tomásˇek of Prague. The main ones were the committee of the superiors of religious orders and dioceses (O. Mádr, J. Zve˘rˇina, T. Halík, A. Opatrny´, D. Duka, H. Pitel, M. Vlk, J. Mikulásˇek, V. Tajovsky´, B. Benesˇ, J. Viterna, F. Petrˇík, V. Jukl) and a lay com- mittee (V. Benda, V. Frei, K. Bendová, M. Freiová, M. Holubová, R. Palousˇ) who above all worked out the “Decade of Spiritual Renewal of the Nation.” The main authors of this program were Professor Petr Pit’ha, later a minister of education, and Dr. Tomásˇ Halík. At the time, they were, in fact, both under- cover priests.3

These were years of broad cooperation when many intellectuals (not only Charter signatories) willingly cooperated with these church activities. Duplicated copies of magazines and books of religion, philosophy, or culture became the spiritual nourishment of the young generation. We can say that in this period the Czech intellectuals managed to get over their anticlerical and agnostic attitudes. The petition “Thirty-one Points” of the Moravian layman Augustin Navrátil calling for the right of was signed by more than half a million people. After the pilgrimage to Velehrad in 1985, it was the second largest act of resistance against communism since February 1948. It can be said that the presence of Václav Maly´, now a bishop, both on Wenceslas Square in November 1989 and on Letná Plain in November 1989, after the solemn pilgrimage for the of St. Agnes at Prague’s St. Vitus cathedral, was symbolic of the entire movement. Cardinal Tomásˇek pro- claimed that church was standing on the side of nation and had victoriously fin- ished its struggle with the regime that had sentenced it to death.

Development following November 1989 has been a period of great and even hectic effort for renewal in the church. The above-mentioned committees already began their work in November of 1989. It will be a task for historians to assess all our steps and also to evaluate correctly the mistakes that were made. What is interesting is that in the first ten years of freedom Catholic believers made up more than fifty per cent of the successive governments of the free state as well as the leadership of the universities and institutions of higher learning. In the spring of 1990, Pope John Paul II visited free Czechoslovakia. At Letná Plain, where communist parades used to take place, he said a solemn Mass in presence of the president, the government and parliament and concel- ebrated with newly consecrated bishops. The long forsaken vacant diocesan sees now had their bishops. Religious life could leave the underground. New religious books and magazines appeared. During this period of freedom all the church structures were renewed. The houses of religious communities were returned to them. Three faculties of theology were renewed or founded as parts of the university (Prague, Olomouc, and Ceskˇ é Budejovice), where now about 31

1200 people study, including 300 future priests. About 90 church schools were renewed and now they have 15,000 students. Church schools are valued high- ly both for educational results and discipline in a context where the school sys- tem used to be completely the domain of communism. Equally wonderful is the renewal of the diocesan, district, and parish charitable organizations. The Catholic Charities organization is one of the largest non-profit organizations in the sphere of social services. It gained great respect in the time of floods in 1997 and 1998. It is also respected because of the quality of services in its member organizations. The number of and people going to the sacra- ments has increased. The selection of both magazines and publishing houses is very broad. Here the religious communities and diocesan activities have shown remarkable strength. New movements such as Focolare or the Charismatic Renewal are also very active.

At the same time we must admit that school environment is closed to the activities of the church. Ways other than teaching catechism will have to be found. The church itself struggles with the effect of age distribution across gen- erations. Most of the believers are among the older generation. We can view the young generation with a certain hope, but a gap exists in the middle generation. At the same time, the number of newborn babies is decreasing. Stagnation of the vocations to religious life or priesthood also causes concern.

The problems mentioned above cause polarization in the church itself. We have progressivism on one end of the spectrum and on the other. This tension is also reflected in the situation of the Prague faculty of the- ology. The church is seeking its place in a pluralastic democratic society. It is not easy to be impartial if a great part of believers supports the Christian Democratic party, while the the governmental structures is that of a coalition. Postmodern development of culture brings relativism in Christian values, and some attempts at dialogue carry a great risk of syncretism.

Finally, I would like to emphasize that Christianity – Christian culture – has great opportunities in the future in our country, as the surveys of the European Union or of Professor Zulehner of Vienna show. I would also like to mention that my short text is a bit one-sided due to the extent of the topic. Religious and cultural history in our country was created by Czechs, Germans and Jews together. From the confessional viewpoint, the Protestant perspective is absent; however, it will be added by Dr. Opocˇensky´, and the Jewish per- spective will be added by Dr. Kraus. NOTES

1 G. Coppa, Sv. Ambrozˇ a Tertio Millenio Adveniente in Salve Nb. 1, 1998 32

2 D. Duka, Desetiletí in Salve Nb. 1, 1997, V. Benda, Desetiletí in Salve Nb. 2, 1997 3 D. Duka, Desetiletí in Salve Nb. 1, 1997, P. Pit’ha, Desetiletí duchovní obnovy národa prˇed miléniem mucˇednické smrti sv. Vojteˇcha (1988 - 1997) in Salve Nb. 1, 1997 33

THE PROTESTANT TRADITION

by

PROFESSOR MILAN OPOCENSKY,ˇ ´ PH.D.

Introduction

We come together to examine Czech culture in the light of faith. It is not incidental that we want to do this in Houston because Czech and Moravian cul- ture marked the history of the state of Texas in a special way. In preparation for this conference I read the book Czech Voices - Stories from Texas (1991). I became aware of the duress and harsh conditions under which the first Czech and Moravian settlers lived. About 150 years ago the first groups crossed the ocean and arrived in Galveston. I am proud that among them there was a rela- tive of mine, Rev. Josef Opocˇensky´, who came with his flock and founded the first Reformed congregation in Wesley, Washington County, in 1864. He built a wooden church which is now a national monument of Texas. During an eco- nomic depression our ancestors came to Texas to start a new life, to farm a piece of land but also to live in political and spiritual freedom. I quote from the above-mentioned book: “As far as religion goes, there are both Catholics and Protestant Czechs here, but the Czechs are mostly either freethinkers or non- believers ... The total number of our people in Texas is uncertain, but I believe that the figure of fifty thousand is the best estimate. Of this number about 80 percent are Catholic... About 15 percent of the population claim to be Protestant (mostly Czech-Moravian Brethren) and the remaining 5 percent are freethinkers” (pp. 2 and 122).

I am grateful to the University of St. Thomas and its Center for Faith and Culture for organizing this conference.

Living in Central Europe

Let me begin with a short lesson in history and geography. In order to grasp the specific features of the Czech culture it is necessary to place it in the proper historic and geographical context. After a prolonged period when we were called Eastern Europeans we speak again about Central Europe. To speak only about Eastern Europe was a rather unfortunate term, a kind of shorthand 34 symbol of the Cold War. It stemmed from the bipolar character of our world, from the division between East and West. In the past we belonged politically to the East; however, we are starting to recover and redefine our distinct culture and identity. Central Europe is the territory which has been formed and shaped by Western , while Eastern Europe was influenced by the Byzantine tradition. Although we found ourselves in the Soviet orbit, cultural- ly we belong to the West and we are part and parcel of Western civilization. This factor has an important bearing on our identity. Identity plays a pivotal role in the life of a human community. It is the inner core of our being. It includes our historical consciousness, our myths, our religiosity, our folk songs, fairy tales and poems and our mother tongue. In the past, people some- times had the feeling that their identity was at stake. Therefore it is hardly sur- prising that after the demise of communism the Slavic people in Central Europe began to see themselves more clearly as Czechs and Western Slavs. Furthermore, the region of Central Europe has been profoundly marked by the presence of Jewish people who were almost totally eliminated and killed at the time of the Holocaust. As a result of this historic development, ordinary life in that region was immensely impoverished.

In order to back my thesis on Central Europe, I quote Samuel P. Huntington:

It is necessary to recognize the distinction, blurred during the Soviet years, between Central Europe and Eastern Europe proper ... The term ‘Eastern Europe’ should be reserved for those regions which devel- oped under the aegis of the Orthodox Church ... Western Europe’s first task must be to re-knit the ties between London, , Rome, Munich, and Leipzig, Warsaw, Prague and Budapest. A new fault line is emerg- ing – a basically cultural divide between a Europe marked by (Roman Catholic and Protestant), on the one hand, and a Europe marked by and Islamic traditions, on the other.1

A Short History Lesson

Let me speak about the historic context. I realize that my perspective is inevitably Protestant and at times a Roman Catholic interpretation would be different. The Christian era began in the Czech lands with the baptism of Czech nobles in Regensburg in A.D. 845 and 863 through the missionary activity of Constantine (Cyril) and Methodius, who had been sent by the Byzantine ruler. Although the Byzantine influence was not totally forgotten for several cen- 35 turies, the Czech lands soon became an integral part of and of western Christendom.

Under the Emperor Charles IV (1346-1378) Prague became the political, cultural and spiritual center of the . The Czech language became indispensable for diplomats. Gothic painting of that period is best rep- resented in Prague. In the second half of the fourteenth century Milic of Kromeriz, Konrad Walhauser and Matej of Janov voiced some radical ideas regarding the interpretation of the Scriptures, preaching the Word of God, church organization and the papacy. The preaching activity of these men, the ideas of , and perhaps also the presence of Waldensian commu- nities in Southern Bohemia prepared the soil for the reform of Jan Hus (1370- 1415). His death at the stake in Constance led to the creation of the Hussite Church. For two hundred years (until 1620), this church community represent- ed an island in the heart of medieval Europe which was no longer controlled by the Holy See in Rome. The Hussite Church emphasized the free proclamation of the Word of God, the administration of the Eucharist in both kinds to the lay people, and the renewal of church life according to the example of the early church. The priests were subject to punishment and were to remain poor.

Within the Hussite Church a movement was growing under the influence of a layman Petr Chelcicky (1380-1450). Around the year 1457 several groups organized themselves into the Unity of Brethren. The Unity argued for nonvi- olence, separation from the world, refusal to take oaths (an important action in a feudal society) and living of the spiritual life of the community in a secluded place. Only later in the sixteenth century did the Unity enter the social and cul- tural life of the Czech lands. It became famous in the field of education, dia- conal activity, church organization and discipline. Its great achievement was the translation of the entire Bible (including the deuterocanonical books) accompanied by a commentary. The Bible of Kralice (1579-93) is the most out- standing contribution of the Unity of Brethren to Czech national culture. Jan Amos Comenius (1592-1670) was the last bishop of the Unity and the founder of modern pedagogy, who lived mostly in exile in Poland and later in the .

It is assumed that before 1620 the Czech population was largely Hussite and Protestant. As a consequence of the 1620 battle on White Mountain, the Counter- was long and harsh. The Protestant gentry and the intel- ligentsia emigrated. To profess to a faith other than Roman Catholic became illegal. Protestant identity survived primarily in the countryside. It was main- tained in the families of farmers and agricultural workers bound in the feudal system. The increased missionary activity of the Roman Catholic Church and 36 the incursions of Jesuits combined with oppression succeeded to a large extent in converting and forcing the Czech population back into the Roman Catholic faith. The history of the indigenous Reformation and Counter-Reformation put a great burden on the relationship between Protestants and Roman Catholics in the Czech lands; these wounds of the past still need to be healed.

When the was issued by the Emperor Josef II in 1781, only the remnants of the former Protestants registered as Reformed and Lutheran. They were not allowed to organize their churches in continuity with their indigenous historic tradition. They had to accept the pattern of the European Reformation. In the first decades of their renewed existence the Czech Protestants who came out of the underground organized themselves in a larger Reformed and smaller Lutheran Church. It was a time of toleration. The Protestants were tolerated and lived under great limitations. Only in the second half of the nineteenth century were the Protestant churches given some free- dom, but their consistory was still located in Vienna. This was the time for making contacts with sister churches abroad. For example, many German and English hymns were translated into Czech. Protestant pastors were increasing- ly studying at the German and Scottish universities.

In 1918 the new state of Czechoslovakia was created through the joint efforts of T. G. Masaryk, President Woodrow Wilson and others. Two Protestant churches merged and created the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren. In 1919 the first School of Protestant Theology was established out- side Charles University. Theological thinking was redirected especially under the influence of J. L. Hromádka, who played a role similar to that of Karl Barth in Switzerland and in Germany. In the early 1920s women also started to study Protestant theology and soon after World War II they started to become ordained.

At the time of the Nazi occupation some lay people, priests and pastors were involved in resistance against the Germans. When the communists came to power in 1948 the churches were not united in their reaction to the new sit- uation. Some accepted the attitude of critical loyalty. There was an attempt to improve and humanize the living conditions of people. The dialogue between Christians and Marxists originated in the hope that Marxists would eventually give up their messianism. These efforts led to the so-called Prague Spring. However, many hopes were crushed by the Soviet-led invasion in August 1968. A new repression of intellectual and religious life followed.

After the demise of communism in 1989 the churches were faced with new challenges. Two non-Catholic Schools of Theology were incorporated into 37

Charles University. Many diaconal projects came into being. To some extent it helped to improve the credibility of the churches. One of the important chal- lenges was how to secure and stabilize the financial situation of the church.

Revolutionary Changes and the Crisis of Western Civilization

Let us put the issue of Czech culture in a still larger context. We carry out our work and mission in a situation that has been profoundly marked by ongoing revolutionary changes. Revolution implies the transformation of the very foun- dations of a system and its social and economic relationship. Globally speaking, we have been living for decades in a widespread and complex revolutionary tran- sition. An integral part of this development is the process of decolonization and the establishment of new states in Africa and Asia. Our epoch is marked by the ongoing contradictory struggle for world development and by the struggle against neocolonialism. Samuel P. Huntington coins the term “the clash of civi- lizations.” He predicts a clash on the fault line between two . We may well wonder whether the war in the Persian Gulf and recently in Afghanistan does not represent the first step in a conflict between two civilizations.

Christians have often negated and condemned radical and revolutionary changes. Yet Christians believe that a genuine change is necessary and is under both the judgement and promise of God. Therefore Christians should be pro- tagonists and pioneers of all necessary changes.

It is the concern of all of us to keep Western civilization strong and vigor- ous. However, two images exist of the power of the West. The first one is of almost total Western dominance: the international banking system, capital mar- kets, the space industry, finished goods, communications, and technical research. The second image is of a civilization in decline. The West’s victory has produced exhaustion, and it is increasingly concerned with its internal problems and needs (slow economic growth, stagnating populations, unem- ployment, social disintegration, drugs and crime). [Huntington, op.cit., 81ff]

Czech culture as an integral part of Western civilization has the obligation and mission to strengthen Western civilization and to make a contribution to its spiritual vigor, both in Europe and in the United States. Can Czech culture do this? T.G. Masaryk wrote several books on this subject. I wish to highlight his books on suicide and on modern man and religion. In another book, The Making of a State (1925), Masaryk writes as follows:

The modern human being suffers under suicidal agony because of the 38

lack of energy, because of weariness and fear coming from spiritual and moral isolation, from titanism and the cult of superman. Militarism is an attempt of this superman to escape from his own ill- ness; but through the attempt his disease grows.

At the end of the nineteenth century, both Masaryk and the Russian writer Dostoevsky saw clearly the weakness of Western civilization and culture. Today when the conflict between the West and Islamic fundamentalism is emerging we need to listen to these voices more carefully. Dostoevsky’s cri- tique seems to be very perceptive. He criticized the Western world and com- pared it to a beautiful cemetery. Dostoevsky mourns the disappearance of the Europe of knights because unfortunately the Europe of knights has been trans- formed into a market place filled with shopkeepers. According to Dostoevsky, Western civilization has weakened and become sick. Today there is more wealth in Europe but the awareness of good and evil has been lost. Every human being has the innate right to exercise ultimate authority. This leads to titanism, which ends up in despair. What can be salvaged from the spiritual tra- ditions of the West? It is the Europe of knights, of believing Don Quixotes, a Europe of artistic beauty and a Europe of saints. Knighthood is one of the noblest elements in the history of Europe. Human beings have an ideal to which they are dedicated, in which they believe and for which they are ready to their life. According to Dostoevsky it is essential to have an ideal and to believe what is unconditionally sacred. Nowadays we meet very few knights and saints but many greedy, profit-oriented shopkeepers. What Dostoevsky says about Europe and the West can be applied to human civiliza- tion in general.

It is a devastating critique but it is a prophetic voice. It is timely especial- ly in connection with the widening of the European Union to which several Central European states should be admitted before long. The European Union cannot be based merely on economic considerations. We need to struggle not only for its economic and political viability but primarily for its soul; to give its soul back to Europe. Ultimately it is a question of which traditions, which spiritual orientation and on which value system is Europe going to be based. Christian churches and communities should avoid the temptation of domina- tion but they should play a major role in any discussion about the future of Europe.

A Secular City? It is said that Czech culture is one of the most secular in Europe. Many people would ascribe it to the period of communism; however, this process of 39 secularization started already in the nineteenth century.

Secularization is closely linked with the industrial revolution. The purpose of this development was to replace the antiquated means of production. Hard manual work was taken over by machines. Later, during the scientific and tech- nological revolution, humans were gradually excluded from their service func- tion. Some futurologists speak about a third-wave-civilization after the agri- cultural and industrial revolution. The emphasis is put on knowledge and infor- mation. Science and knowledge have a tendency to replace humans as produc- tive forces. Wherever it is possible, manufacturing is automated and controlled with the aid of computers. The unique contribution of humans is in their cre- ativity, in the cultivation of creative abilities, in flexibility and adaptability.

These factors change our common understanding of work. The meaning of life cannot merely be everyday repetitive work. Labor and work may become any kind of creative activity, discovery and invention.

As a result of this process of secularization, people in Europe became alienated from the church and from the Christian tradition. Some theologians see secularization as the direct fruit of biblical faith. Secularization seems to be especially strong in the areas where there was a state church or a strong link between church and state. This may be one reason why its development in the United States was so different. Here you never had a state church and mem- bership in the church was always a personal and voluntary decision.

In Central and Eastern Europe under communism, and even now, Christians live to a large extent in a post-Constantinian period. The direct link between the church and the institution of the state has disappeared. The church- es lost their privileged position and for a long time they could not directly par- ticipate in shaping social and political life. Christians have lost many benefits and privileges. A religious and conviction is no longer a binding and integrating power in society. Some of us understand this development as God’s judgement on the failures, blunders and even crimes (, witch-hunts) of the Christendom era. It would be a great mistake to try to reintroduce the status quo ante of the period of corpus Christianum.

The Predicament of Marxism

There is no doubt that in the Soviet orbit the process of secularization was promoted and enhanced by Marxist ideology, which is critical of any kind of religion. Marxism resembles a Christian doctrine in the time of Christendom. 40

Because of its official standing in social life Marxism became superficial and sterile. As a theoretical basis it has stagnated. Further development was mini- mal. The official ideology was often out of touch with reality. Finally the facts revolted. The slogan “to catch up and overtake the West” indicates that the socialist system was fascinated and blinded by a mechanism that was alien to it. The socialist world should have been aiming at a new model of a different quality. Many mistakes and crimes have been committed in the name of utopia when striving for a more just society. One aspect of life was especially nega- tive. In the arms race with the West ecological concerns have been neglected and sensitivity to nature and environment were not cultivated.

Positively speaking, it was possible to achieve a relatively high standard of living without private ownership of means of production. Some European countries were able to achieve a reasonable standard of living without exploit- ing others. In the sixties an important movement towards democratization was underway.

We have been reminded of the social and communal features of human existence. Christians are often quick to speak out against violence while remaining blind to the violence of the status quo embedded in unjust structures of society. Political freedom is not sufficient in a situation in which the human being is economically enslaved. We need to be aware of our vested interests, greed and selfishness, our ambition for prestige, power, influence and domina- tion. If we want to study racist and sexist discrimination we cannot do so with- out a thorough class analysis. Racism, sexism and classism represent three dif- ferent types of oppression which are closely intertwined.

We may find certain concepts to be useful tools, but, on the other hand, we have to voice our critique. Marxist anthropology seems to be over-optimistic. It ignores the fact that the radical nature of evil is a mystery and cannot be explained away by pointing to social disorder. Evil is more complex and sub- tle than social injustice.

Regarding religion, we have to ask ourselves whether religion sometimes does not deepen self-alienation. Sometimes it becomes a numbing tranquilizer. At times the leading and dominating theology was the theology of rulers. Sometimes it was a projection of human hopes and expectations, as Feuerbach contended. However, this critique does not touch upon the very depth and core of the Gospel. The Gospel – Jesus Christ – is a saving and liberating power. In the past we were sustained and carried by our conviction that in the long run no society can live without the dimension of love, forgiveness and reconcilia- tion. Therefore, the presence and witness of a Christian community in a socie- 41 ty is of unique importance, and without triumphalism we may say that it is irre- placeable.

What Have We Learned for Today and Tomorrow?

In 1989, through non-violent demonstrations, the Czech people also opted for democracy, freedom, openness and pluralism. The period of bipolar politics ceased to exist. Christian communities have learned a lesson from the past that can be beneficial to the Church Universal.

It was a time of difficulties and temptations but also of challenges and new opportunities. Our hearts have been searched and tested. We can see the peri- od after 1948 under both the judgment and promise of God. In those years God did not emigrate to the West. A Christian perspective does not allow us to either unnecessarily demonize or to glorify this epoch.

In a hostile environment Christian communities lived without privileges and power. Powerlessness was often the source of a real power, of a new authority and credibility. The churches were distanced from the corridors of power and had a chance to remain close to simple people. The church has usu- ally acted as a little flock, but it has also experienced having a decisive minor- ity play an important role. Christian existence is always a costly discipleship.

In a hostile situation Christian life was not truly possible without belong- ing to the fellowship of a particular local church. In such a situation the elec- tronic church did not help. Whoever swims against the stream needs to be sus- tained by a community of concrete living people. In a situation of censorship a local parish has the potential to become a space and zone of free speech. Preaching about God’s freedom, righteousness and reconciliation prepared the ground for the radical change which eventually took place.

A church is a political force even if it has no direct political power and influence. Each sermon, Bible study and action of a congregation has a politi- cal consequence and is in itself political. The message about God, who is the Ultimate, renders every political power and institution in this world penulti- mate and provisional. The existence of God to whom the prophets and the apostles witness challenges all the totalitarian claims of secular rulers.

In a civilized society, human rights should be respected. A Christian church needs a certain space for its proclamation, mission and pastoral care. However, ultimately a Christian presence does not depend on a social system 42 and external, legal safeguards. The church did not have a fully respected and acknowledged place in society, but this fact did not destroy the faith. The entire atmosphere in which we were living compelled us to constantly examine whether or not our faith and spiritual stamina were up to the great task and challenge before us.

Czech Culture in a Global Village

Change has taken place and we are grateful for many improvements. However, more than twelve years later, we realize that living out the fullness of Christian faith is not identical with material wealth and affluence. In no way should it be taken for granted that the messianic age has arrived with the advent of liberalism, democracy, privatization and a free market.

The new situation is friendlier to religion and more conducive to the wit- ness of Christian churches. However, there is a danger for churches to become withdrawn, complacent and even opportunistic. There are new idols emerging, which need to be identified and challenged. It is the prophetic task of a Christian community to distinguish between God and mammon, between God and the idol of consumerism. A true community of faith will affirm freedom, participatory democracy, sustainability, openness and pluralism. However, the urgent issues of alienation, exploitation, exclusion, hunger, violence in our homes and in our streets, war and ecological devastation, must not escape the attention of Christians at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

With changes that were long overdue, new questions need to be asked. Is it possible to modify the trend which is leading the Northern Hemisphere and the Atlantic NATO nations to create a powerful bloc and become a threat to the South and other civilizations? Can a situation be avoided in which the European states linked in the European Union become a self-centered fortress? With the disintegration of the Soviet Union is it possible to fully control the nuclear weapons in its possession and to avoid further proliferation? With the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism, and especially after September 11, is humankind still in a position to see and its culture in a positive way and not as the number one enemy?

In Central and Eastern Europe we are confronted with racism, nationalism, xenophobia and tribalism. The right wing groups are multiplying. The demise of communism will not automatically secure the victory of democracy. Democracy is a long-term task, a challenge and a goal for which we all have to work. We disposed of one kind of totalitarianism; however, the pressures of the 43 global market and the spreading culture of consumerism may represent the danger of a new kind of totalitarianism.

Today it is necessary to mention the ongoing process of globalization. It has an impact on all of us. True globalization was made possible by the disap- pearance of the Soviet bloc and its alternative economy. Globalization is an ambiguous development. So far we have more questions than answers. Does globalization benefit the least privileged members of the human family? Is it sustainable? Does this process meet the needs of the present without limiting the capacity of future generations to satisfy their own needs? Globalization is based on the idea of limitless growth. The principle prevails that what is eco- nomically profitable should be promoted; however, we have to recognize our limits, adapt our claims and expectations. We need to be aware of the fact that nations and peoples without financial means are excluded from the mechanism of the market. The name of injustice today is exclusion. The world is global- ized economically, but it is fragmented culturally. Independent cultures, tradi- tions and values are in jeopardy. The principle question is how God wants us to live in a global civilization.

Our churches and all of us individually are enmeshed and entangled in the dominating economic system. Our Protestant – and especially, Reformed – understanding of economics helped to reinforce economic values that separate the physical from the spiritual and place production values above human dig- nity. We believe that the fruits we bear attest to our election and salvation. We have been suspicious of the celebration of life. We have not allowed the mes- sage of the Jubilee to free us from becoming captive to the desire for accumu- lation. The emphasis on success implies that humans must be highly efficient. Anyone not meeting the productivity targets was considered inferior. We should rediscover the true meaning of the Reformation principles by faith only and by grace only (sola fide, sola gratia). A narrow understanding of election and predestination led to a spirit of intolerance. The church polity contributed to the introduction of modern democracy. However, the true meaning of democracy is that all people are included and play a role in decision making (participatory, direct or semi-direct democracy).

The profoundly biblical concept of grace is in contradiction to the ideolo- gy of accumulation, unlimited growth and the theology of prosperity. We do not live from our own deeds, but from God’s gift of grace. We should counter the ideology of competition, the culture of complacency, of privatism and indifference. Democratic institutions should work for social responsibility, jus- tice and for the preservation of nature. The empowers us to live and work responsibly towards the vision of the household of God as the household 44 of life for all humans and all creation (OIKOS).

In my view this is the agenda for Czech culture, for Western civilization and for the entire world. We have to decide whether or not we want to cultivate the culture of responsibility, solidarity, compassion and caring, or the culture of greed and reckless individualism. If our human civilization is to survive we are invited to live the global ethic of the , which is increasingly being seen as a viable ethic for the technological and post-modern era.

NOTES

1 The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, p.158f 45

GENERAL PRESENTATION

by

BISHOP PETER ESTERKA, S.T.D.

Introduction: The Importance of Tradition

It was early in the year 1990. The place was Velehrad, a great castle in Moravia; the occasion was the celebration of the feast of Sts. Cyril and Methodius (July 5), the patrons of the Slavic peoples and co-patrons, with St. Benedict, of Europe. Present together with several thousand of pilgrims were all the bishops of Czechoslovakia. The homilist was one of the most prominent priests and best known and qualified in the whole country, Fr. Tomásˇ Halík of the Archdiocese of Prague, rumored to be in line for the presidency after President Havel. He was preaching about the two Greek brothers: Constantine, who later took the religious name Cyril, and Methodius. They had come in A.D. 863 at the invitation of the Moravian king Rostislav1 to preach the gospel as missionaries to the people of the great Moravian empire. In his excellent homily, Fr. Halík, surrounded by many pilgrims dressed in their colorful national costumes, made an unfortunate remark which offended some. “These external trappings are not important to our faith,” he said, referring to the elab- orate national costumes the people were wearing. It sounded as if he was crit- icizing the traditions that were the framework of their faith. For the proud peo- ple of that region, the most Catholic part of the Czech Republic to this day, his statement sounded like a judgment on their very culture. Knowing his back- ground one could understand that he did not appreciate the cultural ingredients in the expression of these people. Born in 1948, the year communism was established in Czechoslovakia, Fr. Tomásˇ Halík had been raised in an agnostic, intellectual Prague family that was anti-communist; he converted to Catholicism in his first years at Charles University.2

Growing up Where Religion and Life are Integrated

My Experience

I was born and raised in that part of Moravia. As I remember it well in my hometown, our faith was interwoven with our cultural traditions. As a commu- 46 nity, a town of 3,000 inhabitants, we lived the liturgical year: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, and then Pentecost in addition to certain feasts like St. Nicholas, St. Wenceslaus [Yes, that good king of the English Christmas carol is the of my country and my hometown church.] There were May Day celebrations and then came processions through the town for Corpus Christi, Sacred Heart, the feast of the Holy , and processions to bless the fields and the crops. There were formal pilgrimages as well. We walked to Zarosˇ ˇice (20 miles one way), going there on Saturday and returning on Sunday), and rode the train or bus to Velehrad, Hosty´n, Svatá Hora and other sacred places. Music was central to the experience – beautiful and mean- ingful songs whose words were based on solid theology. Boys and girls, as well as adults, who dressed in elaborate national costumes were a colorful addition to the procession, many of them carrying flags or banners or, as in the proces- sions on the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the instruments of Jesus’ torture and crucifixion. The celebration of the Eucharist preceded or was a part of every civic event in my town, and sometimes even the wine cellars rang with songs to the Blessed Mother. As you can see, the inner attitude of faith became visible, audible, and palpable, embodied in these cultural forms.

So it was with the people who came to North America at the end of the nineteenth century. They came with an active faith deeply embedded in their cultural lives. The two were almost interchangeable. I once asked some people in Chatham who were in this early wave: “How did you do it? How did you begin all this?” They replied, “We tried to continue what we did at home.” If it was Sunday they were used to going to church. Now even though they did not have a church, they gathered together in the afternoon and evening and sang and played liturgical as well as secular music. Their tradition was characterized by togetherness through music; it was the vehicle for building faith and build- ing community. Then the people had a meal and talked about their needs. Even those who may have been rejected in their home country often adjusted well and succeeded when they came here. They were brought up to care for each other, and when they could, they did. In many cases, it was admirable how they did so.

As the communities grew, so did their number of marriages, baptisms, and funerals, so they began to think about finding a priest and building a church. In some cases these first immigrants came in groups from the same villages in Moravia or Bohemia, with the village priest following them. The priest saw the village emptying of its people and promised them he would come. In time, they would write: “We are ready for your visit,” and he came.

Usually someone in the community donated a few acres of land on which 47 they first built a small church. Then came a school,3 usually giving instruction in the Czech language; then a rectory; and then a convent for the sisters. In Czechoslovakia most teachers were men. In the new land they also brought Sisters from home, like the Teaching Sisters of Notre Dame who came from Southern Bohemia to Omaha, Nebraska. Very soon these orders recruited novices from among the farm girls of the areas. They did not have television or other media, so they lived very close to the community. Most often those priests and Sisters were very effective. Their way of ministry embodied a model of church that was reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council. The priest is in primary relation to his people; he shares their lot; he does not have a gen- eral function without a specific community to whom he relates. Even though it is not well known, the official teaching during this present time of extraordi- nary migration is that the local American bishop is responsible for the pastoral care of immigrants and refugees who settle in his diocese. Nonetheless, the clear teaching is that it is best to have a priest who comes from the people’s own native land to minister to their spiritual needs.4

Theory: Relationship of Culture and Faith

At present my region of the Czech Republic still boasts the highest per- centage practicing the faith.5 Culture had and has today an important impact on faith. Anyone who does not understand this, such as Fr. Halík that day at Velehrad, must not have had the experience of such integration. In fact, his entry to the priesthood was anything but a community affair. After seven years of clandestine study, he was ordained secretly in the private chapel of the bish- op of Erfurt in East Germany. He said that even his mother did not know of his , nor of his eleven years as an underground priest during which time he counseled alcoholics and drug abusers.

Faith as we are now experiencing it in this century in this country, even in the religious family, is also less traditional and communal and more of an intel- lectual or individual thing. Such a faith will necessarily be shallow because an intellectual conviction alienated from cultural forms will never be equal to emo- tional assault. If another, better explanation comes along, or a person is disap- pointed in the Pope or a pastor, such a faith is vulnerable. When it is a whole life sort of thing, inseparable from one’s way of life, it can withstand whatever chal- lenges it and grow stronger. As Pope John Paul II has emphasized on more than one occasion, “a faith which does not become culture is a faith which has not been fully received, not thoroughly thought through, not fully lived out.6”

I have said above that culture impacts faith, makes it stronger or weaker, but 48

I would go farther than that. I would say that culture mediates faith, brings it to life, enables it to strengthen and to spread. People are formed by their cul- ture; their transformation must also come by way of graced cultural experi- ences. If you want to change people, change the culture! What changes culture? Images, symbols, ritual activities, that unify, heal, and show another, better way to be. Every priest knows that many people come to church only when there are special activities: ashes on the forehead, blessing of the throat, processions carrying palms, children featured in Christmas songs and pageants. When these symbolic events express well what is valued in the culture, there is participation and pleasure in liturgy. When there is dissonance with the values of the culture (e.g., in the symbolic subordination of women or even more triv- ial things such as unsympathetic surroundings and music), the values of the faith are not communicated but are blocked.

Czech Catholics in North America

I. Period One: The Old Timers

Czech emigrants came to the United States mostly after the 1848 revolu- tion and then again in 1870-1880 (often called the “Great Wave” of immigra- tion). The oldest Czech Church with a parochial school in the United States was St. John Nepomucene in St. Louis, Missouri, founded in 1854. The next oldest parish was Our Lady of the Rosary, Hostyn, Texas, founded in 1856. The third was the Church of St. Wenceslaus in Coopertown, Wisconsin, founded in 1858, the same year that saw the founding of the parish of St. Wenceslaus in New Prague, Minnesota.

We are told7 that in the 1870s there were 5,000 Czech immigrants in Nebraska, mostly on farms or in small towns and most of them were Catholics. Since Bishop James O’Connor, bishop of Omaha, did not have any Czech- speaking priests, he wrote to his friend, Abbot Boniface Wimmer of St. Vincent Abbey, of German heritage, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania:

I urgently need 6 German, 6 Czech, and 3 English speaking priests. If it is possible, the German speaking priests should speak either Czech or Polish in addition, and it would be even better if they spoke both lan- guages. The Czech-speaking priests should also speak German and Polish. I am in dire need, especially for priests who speak Czech. . . .

The first of the Czech priests who came to Nebraska from St. Vincent Abbey (1877) was Fr. Václav Kocˇárník, O.S.B. He was born in Kutná Hora 49

(8 March 1845) and immigrated to the USA at the age of eighteen. He found- ed St. Wenceslaus parish in Omaha. Fr. Kocˇárník faced several problems, among which were the unwillingness of many Czech people to support the parish financially and accusations and innuendoes against his person by J. Rosicky´, the editor of the Czech newspaper Pokrok [Progress]. Despite these problems he succeeded in his efforts to organize the Czech Catholics, and the parish grew and prospered. Actually it played a very important role in the lives of the Catholic population not only in Omaha but the whole of Nebraska. Fr. Kocˇárník is a great example of leadership at this time. However, one of Fr. Kocˇárník’s dreams did not come true. It was not just his personal dream; it was also the wish of his superior, Abbot Wimmer, and that of Bishop O’Connor of Omaha. They had hoped that he would found a Benedictine Monastery in Omaha where there would be a seminary for the formation of priests who could serve the Czech Catholics of Nebraska. The Czech monastery was founded but not in Omaha; it was established in Chicago, Illinois, because it was closer to the Abbey of St. Vincent in Pennsylvania.

That first priory of Czech Benedictines originated as the parish of St. Prokop in Chicago in 1885, when Fr. Karel Nepomuk Jaeger8 became pastor of 4,000 families. (The previous year before the Benedictines took over this parish, there were 1,073 baptisms.)

Another of the young men who made a tremendous impact on the growth of pastoral ministry among the Czechs in America was Prokop Neuzˇil. When he was thirteen years old, Neuzˇil and his parents emigrated from Bechyneˇ to the United States. Before he could begin his studies for the priesthood he had to take care of his family on the farm, and when he finally applied for entrance to the St. Francis Seminary in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he was rejected. After an entrance interview he was told that he was academically unprepared. He was also considered somewhat naive. Then in 1884 he was accepted into the St. Vincent Benedictine Monastery. The following year he was sent, for health rea- sons, to St. Prokop Priory in Chicago9. Perhaps it was the Czech environment which made of this sickly and naive monk an industrious, tenacious and untir- ing priest who for a half-century built and organized Czech Catholic life not only in the Chicago area but also throughout the Midwest – from Texas and Oklahoma to Minnesota and the Dakotas. In 1885, when the Priory of St. Procopius was founded, there were 160,000 people of Czech origin in the United States. Everyday there were newcomers as Chicago came to be known as the place to settle. Ninety-five percent of them were baptized Catholics but most were non-practicing. 50

The priests who built the priory10 realized they had to be in touch with their people; therefore, under the leadership of Abbot Neuzˇil, they also began a printing press for Czech language publications. They published newspapers and books, children’s textbooks and religious educational curricula. Their min- istry was organized specifically to serve the immigrants and refugees – old and young, men and women. They founded a home for orphans in addition to expanding the publishing ministry and even founded a full-fledged seminary for Czech and Slovak boys. Many boys came from Texas to Chicago to the Abbey at that time. Suddenly it seemed by the early 1900s the Czechs had become an important presence in some dioceses of the country. In 1923, the Almanac Hlas lists 383 Czech Catholic parishes in the United States. In the same year the same Almanac enumerates 208 Czech priests living in the United States. Obviously not every Czech parish had a priest. By 1932, 349 priests of Czech origin are listed. One of them was the bishop of the diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, Ludvík Kucˇera. In the Almanac Národ in 1957 we find that there are 430 priests, among them three bishops: Bishop John L. Morkovsky, Bishop of Galveston-Houston, George J. Biskup, Archbishop of Indianapolis, and Raymond J. Vonesh, Bishop of Joliet, Illinois.

This institutional presence served the integration of culture and faith in a number of ways. Czechs were now organized and united; they could advertise for support. For example, in Chicago in the 1960s they were still publishing weekly and daily newspapers (Katolík and Národ) which had subscribers even in Canada. Children’s books and magazines, (e.g., Prˇítel Dítek, established in 1890), a Catholic Almanac with a ’ feasts, articles from Czech history and culture, ads for the Czech organizations and businesses, and always a list of Czech priests. It is through this almanac that we know that in 1965 we still had 444 Czech priests. The Czech parishes were no longer listed in a sep- arate category since by then they had become integrated into the American church structure. Czech Catholic communities were very important, however. Why? Among other reasons, when new refugees came there were places where they could at least find people with whom they could connect, speak and learn. The older immigrants were the leaven of the communities. Czech families would sponsor new immigrants.

It is not very different now. In San Francisco, for example, a young woman e-mailed an electronic bulletin board, asking how she could find a Czech com- munity since she was pregnant and wanted her child to have some connection with Czech language and culture. Seeing her inquiry, I sent her an e-mail mes- sage about our mission which has Mass in Czech once a month in San Francisco. If this worshipping community did not exist, there would not be a Czech community available in which a child could learn about his or her her- 51 itage. Again, the practice of the faith can be seen as serving the preservation of the culture. In his 1985 encyclical, Apostles of the Slavs, Pope John Paul II commends Cyril and Methodius for their commitment to translating the riches of Christianity into the cultural forms of the Slavic peoples (# 20). Through their sensitive work of evangelization, the pope maintains, Cyril and Methodius even contributed to the building up of Slavic culture itself (# 21).11

The Benedictine contribution to Czech-American Catholics’ retention of their culture and their faith was immense. It was irreplaceable in insuring that the ministry would not die out with the death of the first generation of native- born priests. They were able to guarantee continuity [and that is the value of institutions]. In order to seek vocations, the Benedictine Fathers founded their own high school and later a college. In the beginning they had enough voca- tions, because priests were still very honored members of the community. So were the Sisters, evidenced in the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sisters of Victoria, Texas, and Incarnate Word Sisters of San Antonio, Texas. The Bohemian Benedictine Sisters of the Sacred Heart at Chicago were estab- lished in 1894. In Omaha it was the School Sisters of Notre Dame who came from Southern Bohemia. The Chicago Benedictine sisters were working in the parishes and had an orphanage.

The very successful Catholic high school Benet Academy and the even more successful Benedictine College experienced tremendous growth. In an article on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the existence of the Czech Benedictines in America, Fr. J. Palecˇek wrote in 1935: “Hundreds and hun- dreds of young men are leaving this school with a college degree which pre- pares them for life. And from the seminary young missionaries, sons of St. Benedict, are leaving to serve our Czech people in order to lead them towards eternal salvation, as did their predecessors before them.” The seminary was closed in 1967, but several years ago the college, located in Lisle, Illinois, became Illinois University.

Very soon, along with their buildings, Czech immigrants began to estab- lish Czech fraternal organizations. All of these organizations began with the goal of unifying the community as well as providing insurance, first for the fathers (breadwinners), but later for other members of the family as well. Their common language and culture, including their Catholic faith, in so far as it was present, remained the context for their social and financial programs.12 The of 1907 says: “All these organizations are thoroughly Catholic in spirit, and not only practice benevolence and charity towards their members, but have been the right hand of the clergy in building Catholic churches and schools and in fostering the spirit of religion amongst their coun- 52 trymen.”

My observation on the historic period of Czech Catholic immigration is this: Where you have culture in synchrony with faith, both culture and faith are flourishing.

II. Period Two: Refugees and Emigrants Who Fled Czechoslovakia After the Communist Takeover in February 1948

Most of the immigrants from 1948 to 1968 were forced to escape because of the political and religious persecution which threatened them. Typically they experienced a vital church in their home country and escaped just as the church began to be persecuted. Many of them were Catholics who had been actively involved in political and religious life in Czechoslovakia before and after World War II. When they emigrated they sought out the church for their spiri- tual needs. They knew the Catholic faith and cultural customs of the past. Because of their children who are assimilated into their chosen countries, many of them have integrated into their territorial parishes. Most of the immigrants of the first period came to the United States for economic reasons. Their val- ues and the values of their children were not exactly the same as those of the new wave of Czech immigrants. While the “old-timers” were trying to settle in small villages or in particular areas of urban centers – such as Chicago, New York, Baltimore, and Cleveland – the second wave of Czech immigrants went to whatever localities promised jobs. Nevertheless, they were willing to travel significant distances to participate in the already established Czech Catholic parishes.

Not surprisingly, tension developed between the old-timers and the second wave of immigrants. I believe this was one of the main reasons why, ultimate- ly, even such a bastion of Czech Catholicism as St. Procopius Abbey finally decided not to continue their ministry to the Czechs. In addition, this was also the time of the Second Vatican Council and the post-Vatican II liturgical and pastoral developments. The American Bishops favored a policy of eliminating ethnic parishes. In spite of this effort, many of the new wave of immigrants continued to keep their national, alive. They were helped in no small way by the heroic missionary priests, often educated at Nepomucenum Seminary in Rome and sometimes by other refugees themselves who came to Germany, , Canada, and the United States. This generation of people and their children remain the backbone of the present ministry to Czech Catholics in this country. They are willing to work for liturgical and social as well as edu- cational projects. Thus, at least in the larger metropolitan areas, the Czech 53

Catholic centers or “missions” developed, each in unique fashion.

The historian Jan Habenicht13 has written that three groups came out of the Czech lands. A small minority were persecuted Protestants; a larger group was of free-thinkers, skeptics, who were anti-church for a number of reasons. The majority of the emigrants (70-80%) were baptized Catholics. Some were not strong in the practice of their faith. Habenicht also asserts that where the free- thinkers settled, Czech culture and language disappeared quickly. Catholics, on the other hand, kept their language through vibrant schools and religious edu- cation. Priests and were educated and expressed it in leadership which was crucial for keeping Czech customs – food, songs, dress, theatrical presen- tations, sports (Catholic Sokol), music and dancing. These often took place on the occasion of religious services and in the context of special feasts. They kept in touch with the home country. They also had by way of their theological training a strong sense of symbol, so they knew the power of cultural to unify and transform people.

As we can see, faith serves the maintenance of the best in culture, too. The relationship between faith and culture is reciprocal.

III. Period Three: The Newcomers: Those Who Escaped After 1968: “Communism with a Human Face” in Czechoslovakia

The third group of immigrants is made up of people who were educated in Marxist-Leninist philosophy of life. Most of them are unchurched and do not seek out the church’s ministry. Many are not baptized, neither are they married in the church. Their children are most often not baptized or brought up as Catholics, but many of them do remember, perhaps from their grandparents, something about religion. They are, I believe, in need of “pre-evangelization.” Very often they are drawn in because of their children who may attend a Catholic school, not because it is Catholic, but because they value private edu- cation. At other times they reach out because of a life-crisis they are encoun- tering.

Today I see the need for the missions to fill exactly this purpose: to be pres- ent when these newcomers are willing and ready to ask for help and to lead them toward the fulfillment of greater spiritual depth. If we are not available, they will turn to fundamentalist groups and cults, as has been shown in other places and times. In Minnesota where I lived for more than twenty years, I saw that wherever there was a Czech priest available for the old-timers, they remained Catholic and got involved in Catholic life by building parishes with 54 schools; and, where there was none, they became Protestant or totally indiffer- ent to religion. More than one Church leader has expressed a deep sense of the necessity of the ethnic apostolate, as many recent Vatican documents state. To attract and keep the newcomers it was important to have priests who have thor- ough knowledge of the mentality, culture, and religious atmosphere of the immigrants’ homelands.

While the newcomers are the core of our missions, it remains important that we get support from those who arrived earlier, who claim their national heritage and are willing to support our ministry substantially, with their money, time, and space. For the third wave of Czech immigrants, the missions provid- ed basic emotional support and the opportunity to pray in their maternal lan- guage, to sing the songs of their youth, and to celebrate national and religious holidays with the food, music, and traditional dress of their own extended com- munity.

Our missions are built around the people I have called the “leaven,” who with their presence and support make it possible for the missionary to “be there” and to reach out to the newcomers, who are searching and are not even aware of their ability to contribute anything at this stage in their life.14

IV. Period Four: The Undocumented

Today we face a new problem – and an opportunity. After the Velvet Revolution in November 1989, a new wave of people began arriving in the United States from the Czech Republic. At the beginning they came mostly as tourists. Later on, when the euphoria of new-found freedom subsided and decent jobs became hard to find, young people especially saw an opportunity to better their lives outside their homeland. Many of these are Catholics who were not allowed to get an education during the communist era are prevented from obtaining the best jobs even now because of the reputation of their fami- lies. They come here as tourists or students and sometimes stay to work as babysitters or companions, housekeepers for private homes as well as motels/hotels, or laborers in construction. Often for one reason or another they cannot go home. Strictly speaking they are here illegally, but their human needs and hopes have not ceased. They are just as much part of my ministry as the Czech-American citizens who often condemn them. They are here. We need to support their struggles for identity and equality in what is often a hostile and unjust environment. Even though they are undocumented and leery about join- ing our missions or being on a list, we need to find ways of articulating the faith that gives them strength and courage to carry on. Two reasons/ways to do this 55 that occur to me are: first, to teach the appropriate attitude of the guest and that of the host, the value of Christian hospitality; and second, to help bring their individual stories to light. Pope John Paul II wrote in one of his annual Messages for World Migration Day: Much more difficult is the status of undocumented immigrants who are hoping to replace legal migrants as the latter climb the social lad- der…People used to emigrate in order to create better possibilities of life; today…people emigrate from many countries merely to sur- vive…Even though developed nations are not always able to assimi- late all those who emigrate, nonetheless it should be pointed out that the criterion for determining the level that can be supported cannot be based solely on protecting their own prosperity, while failing to take into consideration the needs of persons who are tragically forced to ask for hospitality.15

Implications for the United States and Czech Republic

Tensions

Tensions always exist between and among various generations. Of course, the generations are always at war. As Goethe said, “We are shaped and fash- ioned by what we love” and those who grew up within the past century-and-a- half learned to love different things. The question now is no longer how to inte- grate Czech Catholics into local parishes but how to integrate the new and the old within the Czech-American population. In the book, American Catholic,16 the beginnings of the American Catholic church are described as fraught with problems between new and old generations. The same was and is true between generations of priests. There are tensions as well between the various Czech ethnic organizations devoted to culture and those primarily interested in faith. Even when we do not always get along, we need to acknowledge that we are empowered or weakened together. Even in the early days in California some tension existed between the Czech organizations and the religious ones. In 1950, for example, Fr. Popelka, a missionary for the Czechs, was spit at when he came to one Czech organizational event. Members of that organization now sit on my parish council. The only way through these tensions is to listen, for- give, and communicate respectfully.

Paths to Integration of Faith and Culture in the Future

One important path is through music. At a local Dvorak concert originat- ed by an arts group in the city, we the worshipping community were 56 approached as Czechs, requesting that we provide a cultural context that the whole Los Angeles-Santa Barbara population can enjoy. Another path is through the internet. People here are keeping in touch with home through the internet, and new immigrants are discovering jobs, connections, and relation- ships through the internet. I believe the most important way is through prepa- ration for the sacramental events in their lives. People are not formed through popular music, nor even through the fraternal organizations, so long as these are polarized by the generations.17

What are we to do to bring about a time of new creativity for faith in cul- ture? I heard a priest preach last weekend in San Francisco about so much loss of interest in religion. I wanted to go back to the sacristy and say to him: No more words! What are we to do?

I think the best way to spread the faith in a cultural context remains the sacramental life. Though it has not been tried in precisely the way I am seek- ing, the Jesuits just after the Reformation revitalized the spiritual lives of the people by evolving practices of popular religion like pilgrimages and the rosary.18

Many second and third generation Czechs, , and are touched by the feast of St. Nicholas and the traditional customs around Christmas. They tell me that their Czech roots and needs are not met – not even recognized – in today’s American multi-cultural mix. For us, it is not Santa Claus who gives gifts, but St. Nicholas. In Czech Catholic culture name-days are celebrated more than birthdays. Pilgrimages are undertaken not only as events for the enjoyment of music, food, beer, and interaction, but they are more strenuous and they carry a deeper religious meaning about changing one’s life. Seven thousand people in Texas came together to celebrate. The occasion was the feast of the Blessed Mother, but sadly there was no longer much religious content. Americans are searching for more meaning and depth to put into these consumer events. We Czechs have and can share the meanings with which centuries of faith have enriched our culture, meanings which have survived even two generations of atheistic communism.

Of course, we cannot just impose religion on cultural customs, but if we recognize that they have power when they are intermingled, we will seek to create and participate in that power. It will be done by the people and from their own age groups and the music and art they love. That is why I say the solution lies in sacramental life – our best bet for developing a sense of symbol and con- veying a sense of the presence of God in our lives. Music will be a major part of this process. Bishop Duka can tell us how, in the Czech Republic today, 57 young Catholics are developing their own music. If it is good, even the elders come and enjoy it, often through response to their children’s enjoyment. On Moravian Day last time the Saturday night dance was mostly polkas and waltzes – traditional music – and the dance floor filled with mostly middle aged and older dancers. Then at about 11:00 p.m. the contemporary, disco music started to play. The older crowd disappeared and fifty or more younger couples took over with their energetic dances. This is the form of the future, I believe; an appreciation of the cultural dimension of faith is neither marginal nor expendable. Because faith is the soul of culture, and culture is the body of faith, it has to be formed through education, sacramental life, and respect for our different loves.

Sources Cited

Bevans, Stephen, SVD. Cultural Expressions of Our Faith: Church Teachings and Pastoral Responses. Washington, DC: NCCB, 1993.

Dejiny Evropske civilizace I., Paseka 1995.

De Paolis, C.S. The Integration of Immigrants into the Church as the Exercising of a Right to Freedom. Washington, DC: NCCB (Paper presented at Rome, 14-19 October, 1985).

Habenicht, Jan. Deˇjiny Ceˇ ˇchu˚v Americky´ch. St. Louis, : 1904.

Morris, Charles R. American Catholic: The Saints and Sinners Who Built America’s Most Powerful Church. New York: Random House, 1997.

Patterson, Margot. “Priest, Professor - Now President?” National Catholic Reporter (February 9, 2001) 13-15.

Shorter, Aylward. Toward a Theology of Inculturation. New York: Maryknoll, Orbis, 1988.

Sinkmajer, Jos. The of the United States, Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. II (1907). Online Edition 1999 by Kevin Knight.

Skarvada, Msgr. Jaroslav. “Katolicka duslovni sluzba pro cechy v cizine,” in Czech Catholics at the 41st International Eucharistic Congress, held in Philadelphia, 1976, pp. 94-96.

Svejda, Dr. George J. “The Czech Catholic Immigration to the United States of 58

America” in Czech Catholics at the 41st International Eucharistic Congress, held in Philadelphia, 1976, pp. 88-93.

NOTES

1 Deˇjiny Evropské civilizace I., Paseka 1995, pp. 98-99. 2 A professor and public figure, Halík is rumored to be in line for the presiden- cy after Havel. He spoke of his conversion coming through his meeting sever- al priests who had been imprisoned “but were not destroyed but were really mature charming personalities.” was a fellow student at Charles University, and Fr. Halík recalls deciding to be a priest on the night of Palach’s sacrifice. “I was so shaken by this sacrifice that I felt it was time for some sac- rifice on my part. . . .” (National Catholic Reporter, Feb 9, 2001, 14.) 3 Digression - was this movement influenced by St. Jan Neumann or was his effort to set up Catholic schools just a result of this grass-roots development? Jan Nepomuk Neumann, fourth bishop of Philadelphia, b. at Prachatitz, Bohemia, 1811; d. 1860. 4 “Now it can easily be understood that it is not possible to effect this pastoral care in an efficient way, unless the spiritual heritage and the culture of the migrants themselves are respected. To do this, the mother tongue in which they express their thoughts, their mentality and their religious life, is of vital impor- tance.” Pope Paul VI, Motu Proprio Pastoralis Migratorum Cura, (August 1969) DDS, 1975. See also Canon 383:1 A diocesan bishop is to show that he is concerned with all the Christian faithful who are committed to his care regardless of age, condition or nationality, both to those who live within his ter- ritory and those who are staying in it temporarily. . . De Paolis, C-15-9,11. 5 Lidíveˇrˇících v Boha ubylo v celé zemi V Cechˇ ách zˇije 6,120,487 lidí, na Moraveˇ a ve Slezsku 4,172,446 pocˇet obyvatel lidé 60 letí a starsˇí veˇrˇíci Praha 1,178,576 241,200 280,152 (23 ‰) Strˇedocˇesky´ kraj 1,129,627 210,133 258,297 (22.9 ‰) Jihocˇesky´ kraj 630,168 112,717 215,348 (34.2 ‰) Pizenˇsky´ kraj 553,741 104,526 132,099 (23.9 ‰) Karlovarsky´ kraj 306,799 50,570 61,611 (20.1 ‰) Ústecky´ kraj 826,380 136,195 127,071 (15.4 ‰) Liberecky´ kraj 430,769 72,662 77,005 (17.9 ‰) Královéhradecky´ kraj 554,348 104,475 144,667 (26.1 ‰) Pardubicky´ kraj 510,079 93,724 160,786 (31.5 ‰) Vysocˇina 521,212 95,183 240,336 (46.1 ‰) Jihomoravsky´ 1,133,916 212,775 491,023 (43.3 ‰) Olomoucky´ kraj 642,465 114,991 234,359 (36.5 ‰) Moravskoslezsky´ kraj 1,277,095 215,867 508,201 (39.8 ‰) Zlinsky´ kraj 597,758 109,193 326,940 (54.7 ‰) 59

6 Quoted in Shorter, Aylward. Toward a Theology of Inculturation. New York: Maryknoll, Orbis, 1988 p. 231. 7 Buresh, Vit, O.S.B. The Procopian Chronicle.St Procopius Abbey 1885-1985. St. Procopius Abbey, 1985. The Catholic Encyclopedia, published in 1907, lists the following statistics: Chicago 100,000; New York, 40,000; Cleveland, 40,000; Baltimore, 8,500; Omaha, 8,000; Milwaukee 5,500; St. Paul, 6,000; and St. Louis, 8,000. 8 Fr. Jaeger, who like Fr. Kocˇarník, was born in Kutná Hora (24 February, 1844), came to America at the age of 9 in 1853. He was ordained a Benedictine priest at St. Vincent Abbey in 1875 at the age of 31. 9 The Catholic Encyclopedia (1907) credits Abbot Wimmer with rare apostolic insight for requesting papal permission to establish a canonical Bohemian pri- ory in Chicago to equip young men for exercising the ministry among their own countrymen. 10 The priory was raised to the dignity of an abbey in 1894 by Pope Leo XIII; Msgr. John Nepomuk Jaeger O.S.B. was elected the first abbot. 11 Bevans, p. 16. John Paul II’s letter of foundation for the Pontifical Council for Culture states” From the beginning of my pontificate I considered that the dia- logue of the church with the cultures of our time was a vital area, whose stake is the fate of the world in this end of the twentieth century” (15). 12 Early in the history of the emigrants, Czech Catholic Fraternal organizations sprang up. Foremost among those still in existence are the Czech Catholic Union of Cleveland, Ohio; the Catholic Workman of New Prague, Minnesota; the Catholic Union of Texas (KJT), and Catholic Family Fraternal (KJZT) in Austin Texas; and the National Alliance of Czech Catholics in Chicago, Illinois. “The Bohemians of the United States,” Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. II (1907). 13 Deˇjiny Ceˇ ˇchu˚v Americky´ch. St. Louis, MO: 1904. 14 The Basic Pastoral Work of the Missionary: At present we own no property. All the Czech missions in the United States are forced to rent facilities for their liturgies and gatherings. The services are held in some missions on every week- end (New York, Chicago), in other places on a monthly basis (Los Angeles, Washington, DC) or four to six times per year (San Francisco, San Diego). People have to come various distances, sometimes even two and one half hours one way by car, to attend liturgies. There are many who live too far away to attend services but who are in contact with the community through a bulletin or newsletter mailed to them on a monthly basis. Though they are not present, they often support the mission and gain a sense of belonging through the means of communication. The sacramental preparation, (especially for the initiation rites and marriage), and the administration of the are carried out by the missionary, who also visits the sick and conducts funerals. 15 John Paul II, Annual Message for World Migration Day, 1992 in 60

L’Osservatore Romano, N.31 (1252) 5. August, 1992. 16 Morris, pp. 50-52. 17 If the fraternal organizations are effective mostly for the older generation, they cannot be the complete answer. They often stress the institutional side of Catholic life, for example, raising money for the seminaries and convents, but too often they are not able to be explicit in evoking expressions of faith. Their mission is not to increase the spiritual life and understanding of their members, but when they do not, they cease to attract the younger people, just as the music and loyalties of the young leave the older generation cold. This is not the way to mutual renewal of faith and culture. 18 This is referred to in books of history and theology as the devotio moderna. The fact that Vatican II moved to reassert the centrality of the Christ and the Eucharist does not call into question the effectiveness of popular religious practices. It was necessary because popular piety was too effective. 61

CELEBRATION OF THE EUCHARIST

Sunday, February 10, 2002

Homily Given by Bishop Peter Esterka

I too (like Paul in the second reading I Cor. 2:3) come with fear and trepi- dation and not the persuasion of words, because the issue relating to our con- ference – the issue of refugees and immigrants in this country and all over the world – is a difficult one. If we are to correspond to Christ, we Christians are supposed to be a light, to expose oppression and abuse and respond to it with mercy and help. There are people who have the problem of no possibility for a normal life. The problem of so many of those fleeing their place of origin to find a better place in the world has confused and overwhelmed us.

We know we are here – as Isaiah says in the first reading (Isaiah 58:7-8) – to share bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless, clothe the naked when we see them, and not turn our backs on our own. We know we are supposed to be disciples of Jesus, salt on a tasteless meal, light in a gloomy place, and we also know what it requires of us. That is what brings me back to trepidation.

How do we really do it? Do we open the borders of all countries to all who want to come? It is especially in this age of freedom of movement and com- munication that not just good things but also bad can enter ones borders. Can we accommodate everyone who wants to come to the United States – or the Czech Republic or Italy? All are facing the same problem.

I am not claiming to have a solution. I know we cannot, in a magical way, turn on a light and make it shine everywhere. In spite of this, we must begin to do what is expected of us. We could accomplish a lot of that work if we could convince everyone – all who are baptized, but also all who are of good will. To inspire them. To motivate them. But also to motivate ourselves.

When thinking about these issues, and given my work I am always reflect- ing on this challenge. I consider the young man in the parable of the multipli- cation of the loaves. Did Jesus do that only for those 5,000 or so hungry peo- ple? Or is He challenging us to do the same? Often the challenge rings out in the gospels. I would propose that if each of us living in the world recognized each other as a member of the mystical we could do more. We 62 know Jesus could work miracles. Can we, the members of his Mystical Body, do the same? Are we willing to hand over our lunch as did that young man - once a month, maybe once a week? Might we then be able to take care of that hunger and those other conditions that are seemingly impossible to solve?

First of course we have to allow ourselves to see and claim immigrants as our responsibility. I know immigrants who are suffering, and I do not know which is worse – those with or without family. Even those without family gath- er in groups in the darkest of times. One young man told me part of his story. He was lured to a job site, then defrauded and left alone, with no money. I am surprised that more such people do not despair. They pray! Do they pray! Nothing is like the prayer of someone who is really in need. Where do we get the strength and tenacity to remind ourselves of our role – not the whole responsibility, just our role – to eradicate injustice and hunger?

I propose that it is in the Eucharist when we identify with Jesus who iden- tified himself with the bread and wine, symbol of our common humanity. If we share his faith and action, and not just know it ourselves, but share that faith and action with others, we could really and truly be light of the world, chang- ing that gloom Isaiah talks about into the brightness of a Texas day.

I have seen how important the Eucharist is for those who suffer. You would be surprised how many people go to Mass – simple people in need – to gain strength from prayer. I remember one who told me her life was so painful she wanted to jump from a high bridge and was there and ready to do so. But at the last minute she remembered her kids. She came back for them, but she had to continue to live in the same intolerable situation. I asked her, “Where do you get the strength?”“Whenever I can,” she said, “I go to Mass.” For her, that was every day.

We say the Eucharist is efficacious – ex opere operato – it accomplishes its work by the work itself. Theologians maintain it is the Christian community’s act – par excellence – our identification with Christ in all his love and power. Sometimes of course we feel the strengthening grace of the Eucharist more than other times. I love to celebrate the 9:00 a.m. Mass at my parish. It is live- ly; the music is great; and the youth practically dance in the aisles. Often I hear people say, I like to come to your Mass. The difference in how we feel the effect of the Eucharist could reside in many things. When people participate, when the celebrant is really praying, it is good. I know a priest in Australia, who says that when he says Mass, he is somehow transformed.

Today’s prayer over the gifts explains the power of the Eucharist: “May the 63 bread and wine you give us for our nourishment on earth become the sacrament of eternal life.” Let us find in the Eucharist the understanding and the courage to do what is ours to do – to be light, to be salt, to make a difference. 64

SPEAKERS

Bishop Dominik J. Duka, O.P., S.T.L. Bishop of Hradec Králové, Czech Republic After completing his theological studies at Comenius Faculty of Theology in Litomeˇ rˇice, Bishop Duka entered the secret novitiate of the in 1968 and was ordained priest in 1970. In 1981, he was imprisoned for a year because of his religious activities. He was ordained Bishop in 1998 and appointed ordinary of the Diocese of Hradec Králové. Currently, he serves as Chairman of the Conference of Religious Superiors, as Vice President of the Union of European Conference of the Religious Superiors, and is a member of the accrediting board at the government of the Czech Republic and lecturer of Biblical Theology at the Faculty of Theology at the Plackého University in Olomouc. His published works include: Introduction into the Studies of the Holy Writ; The School of Inner Prayer; Fight for Human; and Introduction into Theology Hradec Králové.

Bishop Peter Esterka, D.D., S.T.D. Auxiliary Bishop of Brno; Bishop of Czech Catholics in Diaspora Bishop Esterka grew up in Dolni Bojanovice in Czechoslovakia and experienced the horrors of WW II as the front lines formed just a few miles from his home. The Communists took over the government and outlawed the practice of religion, As tension grew and he was called before the police for interrogation, the young Esterka escaped by cutting through barbed wire to cross the heavily guarded bor- der into Austria. His remarkable story of escape has been published under the title, Never Say Comrade. He studied in Rome and was ordained in 1963. He earned a doctorate in theology at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. At Bishop John Morkovsky’s request, Msgr. Peter Esterka founded in 1984 the North American Pastoral Center for Czech Catholics. In 1999, Pope John Paul II named him Auxiliary Bishop for the Diocese of Brno, with his main focus being the spiritual welfare of Czech Catholics living outside the Czech Republic.

Tomas Kraus, J.D. Executive Director, Federation of Jewish Communities, Prague, Czech Republic Dr. Kraus studied at the Faculty of Law, Charles University, in Prague, Czech Republic. In 1990, Dr. Dezider Galsky, President of the Federation of Jewish Communities, asked Dr. Kraus to assist with the revitalization of the life of the Czech Jewish community. Since 1991, he has served as Executive Director of the Federation in which he has participated in reestablishing the entire infra- 65 structure of the Jewish community. He also negotiated for return of Jewish property and compensation for Holocaust survivors on national and interna- tional levels. Both of Dr. Kraus’ parents were Holocaust survivors. He is mar- ried and has three children.

Reverend Donald S. Nesti, C.S.Sp. Professor of Theology and Director of the Center for Faith and Culture, University of St. Thomas, Houston, Texas

Rev. Nesti, a native of Pennsylvania, was ordained to the priesthood in 1963. He earned a licentiate and a doctorate in theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He has served as Provincial Superior of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, USA – West (1995-2001) and was President of Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA (1980-87). Publications include: Grace and Faith: The Means of Salvation, Pittsburgh, Catholic and Quaker Studies, (No. 3), 1975; co-ed.: Catholic-Quaker Studies; contributor: Evangelizing the Cultures in AD2000. His most recent article, “A Voice Rediscovered,” appeared in Origins (November 2001).

Professor Milan Opocˇensky´, Ph.D. Author and Lecturer, Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics, Protestant School of Theology of the Charles University, Prague

Professor Milan Opocˇensky´ and wife Jana née Juránková are parents of three children and live in Prague. Professor Opocˇensky´ was ordained in the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in 1955 and received a doctorate degree in Theology from the Comenius Faculty in Prague in 1965. He served as General Secretary of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in Geneva from 1999 to 2000. Most recently, he completed a year as visiting professor at the Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey. Publications include: Christians and Revolutions, 1977; Widerstand und Revolution, 1982; Faith Challenged by History, 2000. 66

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The conference which resulted in the articles that are contained in this booklet was presented by the Center for Faith and Culture of the University of St. Thomas. We would be remiss, however, if we did not also express our grati- tude to certain individuals who worked so hard to make the conference a suc- cess and to make this booklet a reality.

Conference Steering Committee Rev. Paul Chovanec (Pastor, St. Christopher Church, Houston) Dr. Ronald Hatchett (Professor/Chair, International Studies, University of St. Thomas) Mr. Daniel Hrna, J.D. (Czech Heritage Society of Texas) Mr. Marvin Marek (Czech Educational Foundation of Texas) Mrs. Effie Rosene (Czech Cultural Center Houston) Mr. Bill Rosene (Czech Cultural Center Houston) Dr. Michael Sustˇ (Music Director, Heritage Presbyterian Church)

Consultants Mr. Jerry Bartos Captain Eugene A. Cernan Rev. Joseph Hybner Mrs. Clarice Snokhous Mr. Ray Snokhous

Financial Support Catholic Family Fraternal of Texas Catholic Union of Texas, The KJT Catholic Workman - Mr. Steve Bisek Rev. Paul Chovanec Cordúa Restaurants - Américas / Amazón Grill / Churrascos Mr. & Mrs. Clarence A. Christ Czech Cultural Center Houston Czech Educational Foundation of Texas Diocese of Galveston-Houston Ms. Francine Mikulik Fleming Fort Bend County Czech Alliance Inc. Mrs. Dan Goodman Rev. Joseph M. Hybner JRN Nursery Judith and Marvin Marek Ms. Victoria Vydr´zal Matocha 67

Marek Family of Companies Dr. & Mrs. J. D. McConnell Rev. Stephen J. Nesrsta North American Pastoral Center for Czech Catholics North Houston Pole Line Corporation The Scanlan Foundation Clarice and Ray Snokhous St. Cecilia Catholic Community St. Mary's Seminary Texas Czech Heritage and Cultural Center Inc. Texas District, National Alliance of Czech Catholics

Welcome / Opening Remarks Most Rev. Joseph A. Fiorenza, D.D., Bishop, Diocese of Galveston-Houston Rev. J. Michael Miller, C.S.B., S.T.D., President, University of St. Thomas

Conference Facilitator Most Rev. Patrick J. Zurek, D.D., S.T.L., Auxiliary Bishop, San Antonio, Texas

Publicity / Graphics Design Mr. Tom Overton, Director, Public Affairs, University of St. Thomas Ms. Sandy Soliz, Assistant Director, Public Affairs, University of St. Thomas Mr. Mike Swenson, Graphic Designer, Publications, University of St. Thomas Ms. Kennedy Rehbein, Web Administrator, University of St. Thomas

Hospitality for Speakers (housing, transportation, touring of Houston area) St. Mary's Seminary Mr. Dan Hrna, J.D. Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Marek Dr. Sallye Miller, LMSW-ACP, LMFT Mr. & Mrs. Ben H. Schleider, Jr.

Conference Catering Michael Cordúa, Cordúa Restaurants

Hradec Králové Male Chorus Concert Hradec Králové Male Chorus (Prague) Dr. Michael Sust,ˇ Music Director, Heritage Presbyterian Church Mr. Steve Sloper, Music Director, St. Cecilia's Church St. Cecilia Catholic Community Liturgy and Music Deacon Denis Smaistrla, Treasurer & Plant Manager, St. Mary’s Seminary 68

Sr. Anita Smisek, O.P., Alliance Publications Ms. Bridget Wenk, Music Director, St. Mary's Seminary

Conference Registration and Check-in Ms. Bina Mlcak Ms. Twila Rogers

Anthology Editing and Proofreading Rev. Paul Chovanec, Pastor, St. Christopher Church Rev. Donald S. Nesti, C.S.Sp., Director, Center for Faith and Culture, University of St. Thomas Sr. Adele Caire, R.S.C.J, Duchesne Community, Houston Ms. Cynthia Sapio, Administrative Assistant, Center for Faith and Culture, University of St. Thomas

To all of these – and many others – who contributed their time, talent and treas- ure, we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude!

Center for Faith and Culture University of St. Thomas Houston, Texas