Comrade-Z
9th January 2007, 21:01
Czech Republic: Legacy of communism hurts church
By Lou Jacquet
1/5/2007
Catholic Exponent (www.doy.org)
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (Catholic Exponent) - Imagine being a priest in a country where your Sunday Mass congregation consists of fewer than a dozen people. Imagine being a priest in a country where the state controls the Catholic Church. Imagine being a priest in a country where some of your fellow priests are pleased when Catholicism falters and parishes must be closed. Imagine being a priest in a country where your own parents are upset with your decision to follow your religious vocation.
Father Martin Davidek, 39, a native of Prague and a priest of the Diocese of Litomerice in the Czech Republic, does not have to imagine these concepts. They are the realities he lives with in his daily work as a priest in the chancery there.
Father Davidek, who was in Youngstown recently on vacation visiting his friend, Father Vit Fiala, at the Shrine of Our Lady, Comforter of the Afflicted, on Belle Vista Avenue, spoke with the Exponent about what life is like for Catholics in the Czech Republic today. The country has a population of about 10 million.
The young priest, who has visited the United States on several occasions, reminded the Exponent that many Americans do not realize that the Czech Republic – created when Czechoslovakia split into two independent nations, the other being Slovakia – is a central European country. It is only about a 12-hour drive from Rome. But decades under communist rule have made life for the Church there quite different from what Catholics in the United States and much of Europe are used to.
“We have similar institutions, but our Church is still controlled by the government,” he explained. “There is no separation between the Church and the government. For us it is very hard because they control everything.” He said the Catholic Church is very unpopular in the Czech Republic among the general populace because, under communist rule, it was associated with everything evil, and many persons still believe that to be true.
Perhaps most sadly, he said, there is a real generational divide between many of the country’s older priests, ordained during communist times, and a new generation like himself who came to the faith since the freedoms of the “Velvet Revolution” (so-named because it was non-violent and widely-accepted) that saw the overthrow of communism in 1989 and the also unopposed split into two independent counties in 1993. He said: “We are now part of the European Union. Life in the Czech Republic is very comfortable for many people now. It’s an eight-hour flight from New York City. In every school, the second language now is English; my native language, of course, is Czech, but when I was growing up school children learned Russian. That’s no longer the case.”
In the new post-communist Czech Republic, he said, people “enjoy the new freedoms but don’t yet realize that freedom also means responsibility. People welcomed the more open society but are now learning that freedom brings more with it than they had expected.” Culturally, he said, automobiles are available but, in a society where gasoline costs about $6 per gallon, Czechs rely much more on public transportation than Americans do. The Czech economy is growing; new technologies abound, and visitors can find many of the same products, such as fast foods, available in other western societies.
Father Davidek works in the Diocese of Litomerice, which has 437 parishes and 120 priests. There are about 130,000 baptized Catholics in the diocese, he said, but only some 12,000 attend Sunday Mass. “They want and accept baptism, but they do not go to church because the society is against the Church. They do not practice the religious life. Most have lost the connection with the Church, so I see it as a situation ripe for evangelization.”
In expressing that attitude, he said, he and his generation of priests are different from the older priests who preceded them. In a comment that would shock many Americans, Father Davidek said that “the older priests were very compromised by communist thinking.” Far from evangelizing, he said, many priests “saw their duty as wanting the Church to grow smaller and smaller so that your parish would collapse and you could close the church building.” There were heroic exceptions of course, he acknowledged, with many priests spending years in prison or in remote parishes for opposing communism. But “many priests saw their task as burying everyone and closing the parish down,” he added.
“Now,” he said, “the young priests think completely differently. They want the Church and the parish to grow. But it was very confusing to me, when I was first ordained, to meet the older priests who had been paid by the state under the communist system and were quite happy when they could shut down a church.”
Father Davidek said it will take time for the Church to make inroads into what is essentially a society hostile to Catholicism; he noted that the concept of a priest mingling with his parishioners after Mass in the vestibule, a scene so common in the United States, is a new idea in the Czech Republic, where older priests generally celebrate Mass and then retire to the sacristy without talking to anyone. “In my country, there was always a big separation between the clergy and the people. But younger priests feel differently about that.”
“That idea of mingling with the people after Mass is one of the many things I bring back to my country when I visit here,” he told the Exponent. “When I came here, I saw that priests have a personal approach to people; that was very useful to me. We are building a new model of Church in our country; we are learning from America how to make the Church work in an open society, learning how you solve your problems.” Textbooks from Franciscan University of Steubenville have been especially useful in that regard, he said.
The priest noted that many in the West do not realize the Czech Republic has two quite distinct areas: the eastern part, called Moravia, near Slovakia, is quite Catholic and traditional; the other, Bohemia, is where the Catholic Church is very unpopular. “Officially,” he said “about 40 percent of the residents of the Czech Republic are baptized Catholics. But 20 percent go to church in Moravia and less than one percent in Bohemia, where people get baptized and then never return to church.”
But despite such daunting statistics, Father Davidek says he has real hope that the Church will grow and prosper in the Czech Republic.
“I am convinced that things will improve,” he said, “because I have seen in my lifetime that many young people are looking for spirituality, for God, as I was. The Church there is very traditional, because it was stunted for decades under communism, but now we can build the Church as something new. For us, it is a new future. Still, this is a country where the Catholic Church was considered a criminal organization during communist times; the entire school system taught that Catholicism was a great conspiracy against the human race. It showed us the Church as if it were the devil. That will take time to overcome.”
The reality of growing such a new Church there, he added, involves the poignancy of liturgies now being celebrated in huge, old baroque churches with perhaps a dozen people present for Sunday Mass. “Yet many young people look for God, especially students, who go to church near universities. That is very important for the Church there, because future Catholics will come from such situations.”
His own parents, raised under communism, have not been pleased with him for his conversion to Catholicism, he noted. They still ask him if he might not abandon the priesthood and become a laborer. “They still see the Church as the worst of all evils, and a priest as the worst possible thing to be.”
Father Davidek said he finds Europe much more formal than America. “In Europe, we complain more,” he laughed. “In eastern Europe, especially, people complain about everything because they have ideas and cannot implement many of them. Conditions are more difficult. Life here in America is far more hectic. Americans are a much more informal and welcoming people.”
- - -
This story was made available to Catholic Online by permission of the Catholic Exponent (www.doy.org), official newspaper of the Diocese of Youngstown, Ohio.
1% attend church! Yeehaw! Looks like in another generation most people won't even bother to get baptized, I bet. The Church will be looked upon as some psycho cult.
If only the revolutionary bourgeois transformation in England, the U.S., and elsewhere had done us the same favor...
By Lou Jacquet
1/5/2007
Catholic Exponent (www.doy.org)
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (Catholic Exponent) - Imagine being a priest in a country where your Sunday Mass congregation consists of fewer than a dozen people. Imagine being a priest in a country where the state controls the Catholic Church. Imagine being a priest in a country where some of your fellow priests are pleased when Catholicism falters and parishes must be closed. Imagine being a priest in a country where your own parents are upset with your decision to follow your religious vocation.
Father Martin Davidek, 39, a native of Prague and a priest of the Diocese of Litomerice in the Czech Republic, does not have to imagine these concepts. They are the realities he lives with in his daily work as a priest in the chancery there.
Father Davidek, who was in Youngstown recently on vacation visiting his friend, Father Vit Fiala, at the Shrine of Our Lady, Comforter of the Afflicted, on Belle Vista Avenue, spoke with the Exponent about what life is like for Catholics in the Czech Republic today. The country has a population of about 10 million.
The young priest, who has visited the United States on several occasions, reminded the Exponent that many Americans do not realize that the Czech Republic – created when Czechoslovakia split into two independent nations, the other being Slovakia – is a central European country. It is only about a 12-hour drive from Rome. But decades under communist rule have made life for the Church there quite different from what Catholics in the United States and much of Europe are used to.
“We have similar institutions, but our Church is still controlled by the government,” he explained. “There is no separation between the Church and the government. For us it is very hard because they control everything.” He said the Catholic Church is very unpopular in the Czech Republic among the general populace because, under communist rule, it was associated with everything evil, and many persons still believe that to be true.
Perhaps most sadly, he said, there is a real generational divide between many of the country’s older priests, ordained during communist times, and a new generation like himself who came to the faith since the freedoms of the “Velvet Revolution” (so-named because it was non-violent and widely-accepted) that saw the overthrow of communism in 1989 and the also unopposed split into two independent counties in 1993. He said: “We are now part of the European Union. Life in the Czech Republic is very comfortable for many people now. It’s an eight-hour flight from New York City. In every school, the second language now is English; my native language, of course, is Czech, but when I was growing up school children learned Russian. That’s no longer the case.”
In the new post-communist Czech Republic, he said, people “enjoy the new freedoms but don’t yet realize that freedom also means responsibility. People welcomed the more open society but are now learning that freedom brings more with it than they had expected.” Culturally, he said, automobiles are available but, in a society where gasoline costs about $6 per gallon, Czechs rely much more on public transportation than Americans do. The Czech economy is growing; new technologies abound, and visitors can find many of the same products, such as fast foods, available in other western societies.
Father Davidek works in the Diocese of Litomerice, which has 437 parishes and 120 priests. There are about 130,000 baptized Catholics in the diocese, he said, but only some 12,000 attend Sunday Mass. “They want and accept baptism, but they do not go to church because the society is against the Church. They do not practice the religious life. Most have lost the connection with the Church, so I see it as a situation ripe for evangelization.”
In expressing that attitude, he said, he and his generation of priests are different from the older priests who preceded them. In a comment that would shock many Americans, Father Davidek said that “the older priests were very compromised by communist thinking.” Far from evangelizing, he said, many priests “saw their duty as wanting the Church to grow smaller and smaller so that your parish would collapse and you could close the church building.” There were heroic exceptions of course, he acknowledged, with many priests spending years in prison or in remote parishes for opposing communism. But “many priests saw their task as burying everyone and closing the parish down,” he added.
“Now,” he said, “the young priests think completely differently. They want the Church and the parish to grow. But it was very confusing to me, when I was first ordained, to meet the older priests who had been paid by the state under the communist system and were quite happy when they could shut down a church.”
Father Davidek said it will take time for the Church to make inroads into what is essentially a society hostile to Catholicism; he noted that the concept of a priest mingling with his parishioners after Mass in the vestibule, a scene so common in the United States, is a new idea in the Czech Republic, where older priests generally celebrate Mass and then retire to the sacristy without talking to anyone. “In my country, there was always a big separation between the clergy and the people. But younger priests feel differently about that.”
“That idea of mingling with the people after Mass is one of the many things I bring back to my country when I visit here,” he told the Exponent. “When I came here, I saw that priests have a personal approach to people; that was very useful to me. We are building a new model of Church in our country; we are learning from America how to make the Church work in an open society, learning how you solve your problems.” Textbooks from Franciscan University of Steubenville have been especially useful in that regard, he said.
The priest noted that many in the West do not realize the Czech Republic has two quite distinct areas: the eastern part, called Moravia, near Slovakia, is quite Catholic and traditional; the other, Bohemia, is where the Catholic Church is very unpopular. “Officially,” he said “about 40 percent of the residents of the Czech Republic are baptized Catholics. But 20 percent go to church in Moravia and less than one percent in Bohemia, where people get baptized and then never return to church.”
But despite such daunting statistics, Father Davidek says he has real hope that the Church will grow and prosper in the Czech Republic.
“I am convinced that things will improve,” he said, “because I have seen in my lifetime that many young people are looking for spirituality, for God, as I was. The Church there is very traditional, because it was stunted for decades under communism, but now we can build the Church as something new. For us, it is a new future. Still, this is a country where the Catholic Church was considered a criminal organization during communist times; the entire school system taught that Catholicism was a great conspiracy against the human race. It showed us the Church as if it were the devil. That will take time to overcome.”
The reality of growing such a new Church there, he added, involves the poignancy of liturgies now being celebrated in huge, old baroque churches with perhaps a dozen people present for Sunday Mass. “Yet many young people look for God, especially students, who go to church near universities. That is very important for the Church there, because future Catholics will come from such situations.”
His own parents, raised under communism, have not been pleased with him for his conversion to Catholicism, he noted. They still ask him if he might not abandon the priesthood and become a laborer. “They still see the Church as the worst of all evils, and a priest as the worst possible thing to be.”
Father Davidek said he finds Europe much more formal than America. “In Europe, we complain more,” he laughed. “In eastern Europe, especially, people complain about everything because they have ideas and cannot implement many of them. Conditions are more difficult. Life here in America is far more hectic. Americans are a much more informal and welcoming people.”
- - -
This story was made available to Catholic Online by permission of the Catholic Exponent (www.doy.org), official newspaper of the Diocese of Youngstown, Ohio.
1% attend church! Yeehaw! Looks like in another generation most people won't even bother to get baptized, I bet. The Church will be looked upon as some psycho cult.
If only the revolutionary bourgeois transformation in England, the U.S., and elsewhere had done us the same favor...