With the remarkable events of the year 1989, the Czech people realized they were standing at the edge of a new order for their country. Their struggle had yielded nothing “politically correct.” They had fought, rather, for the cause of truth over lies, good over evil, order against chaos, the transcendent over the pragmatic.
Three questions about this awakening bear directly upon its future: Was it a religious answer to communist primitivism? Was this a sign of a society positively transformed by Christian ethos? How was the Church involved?
The peaceful revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe were not a protest confined to lack of goods in state-run shops. It was, first and foremost, a rebellion against the manipulation of human aspirations, against the trampling down human dignity.
The political take-over in the Czech Republic was thus strongly supported by religious people, the most natural enemies of Soviet totalitarianism. The Catholic Church, then headed by Frantisek Cardinal Tomasek, stood in the very heart of the events. But how is it five years later?
Vaclav Klaus, the classical liberal prime minister of the Czech government recently compared the Church to a tourist organization composed by people seeking to satisfy either their material or religious needs. Klaus’s characterization implied that religion is merely a private matter, and that public discussion of religious answers was undesirable. So when the August Velehrad pilgrimage was broadcast on public television dedicating the Czech nation to Virgin Mary, Klaus publicly expressed anger toward the Catholic Church, saying, “it is time to turn our attention back to churches of Reformation.”
Since the Czech nation is one of the most secularized nations on the earth, suffering from more than forty years of little or no religious education, Klaus’s attitude probably reflects the majority of the Czech population.
Before 1989, thanks to the persecution of Christians, and especially Catholics, many non-religious people had become sympathetic with the struggle against the cruelty and injustice of communism. Once the Church stepped back into the public arena, the new liberal political class quickly started to push the Church back into its churches. They disguised their real intentions by raising an outcry against the “rich Church.” But the Church in this country is hardly rich. The communist regime confiscated all Church property, and even today the state controls ecclesial finances. The Church has declared its interest in becoming independent of public finances—as we all very well know, the state controls what it pays for.
There would be nothing easier than to give the Church back its original property, the buildings, lands, and forests confiscated during the communist regime. The Church could step away from the redistributive powers of the state and become materially independent of the body politic. But liberals on both the right and left will not allow this to happen. They all know that without property the Church can never assume its place in the social and educational fields.
The Church thus finds itself in an uneasy position. How vigorously should it pursue its confiscated property? Should the Church sue the state? The media portrays the Church as greedily interested in garnering property and pursuing “ideological and political aims” through economic power.
Hysteria erupted after a recent court decision concerning the ownership of Prague’s famous St. Vitus Cathedral. A protest movement immediately was organized calling for transfer of ownership into the hands of “the people.” This Bolshevik-like petition was signed by 102 members of 200 parliament members. More than 20 of the signers were members of the Civic Democratic Party of Vaclav Klaus.
While the communist ideology is no longer explicit, it implicitly rules the hearts and minds of the current political elite. The Church, unprepared for such a situation, was involuntarily maneuvered into a position from which it is difficult to escape. The media has often criticized the Church for its “two-faced” morality, one face preaching evangelical love, the other seeking material wealth.
The communist monopoly was most effective in the realm of truth and ethical values. Every sector of life was stamped by a materialist ideology of gnostic character.
These particular ideas brought an inclination towards an institutionalized relativism where truth serves the particular interests of class and gender. Morality, thus, does not stand for anything real, it merely mirrors the material conditions and class struggles of society.
After forty years of communism, people have learned that truth is something arbitrary, a mere symbolic expression of personal preferences and motives. We are the measure of good and evil. Truth is a purely private matter.
The standard of Church-state debate in this particular country relies not so much on the legal and practical arrangements, but rather on a common willingness to accept a certain set of principles, rules and norms of a free and virtuous life. It is the cultural and ethical pillar of that is most vulnerable in our country. The current liberal elite, with its distrust of mediating institutions and traditional morality, will not dare to prohibit publicly held religion. But the aim is clear—to marginalize the Church as much as possible.
There are many reasons to consider the Church to be a part of a free, democratic polity. It is important for democracy to have a lively and visible Church, not only mediating salvation but also the almost forgotten principles of ordered liberty. With the present confusion of western intellectuals, perhaps the Church possesses the spiritual and intellectual light necessary to help nations recovering from the maladies of the atomized collectivism.