STARA BOLESLAV, Czech Republic (Reuters) - Pope Benedict, ending a trip to this highly secular nation, said on Monday the fall of communists who tried to erase religion was proof that God cannot be excluded from public life.
At a mass in this town where the Czech patron St Wenceslas was murdered in the 10th century, Benedict addressed a crowd of around 50,000 mainly young people.
Making his first papal visit as the country marks 20 years since the Velvet Revolution ended four decades of communist rule, Benedict spoke of the fall “of powerful figures who had apparently risen to almost unattainable heights.”
“Today there is a need for believers with credibility, who are ready to spread in every area of society the Christian principles and ideals by which their action is inspired,” he said, speaking on the saint’s feast day, a national holiday.
Evoking Wenceslas, who was killed by his brother, Benedict said the Bohemian saint “had the courage to prefer the kingdom of heaven to the enticement of worldly power.”
The pope’s three-day visit to support the Czech Catholic Church, the biggest in a country that has one of the lowest proportions of religious people in the world, has attracted large crowds, but some say partly out of spectacle.
Four decades of Communist rule suppressed religious activity, which has dwindled even more in the following decades. Today fewer than 3 million of the 10.5 million population claim to be Catholic.
“This (event) is proof that there is youth in the Church. I hope the Czech Republic will notice that to be a Christian is not just an image, but is something true,” said 23-year-old Pavel Hora, of Hradistko.
Relations between Prague and the Vatican have been clouded by the fact that the Czechs have not ratified a treaty on ties, and politicians have rejected proposals that would settle claims for the restitution of Church assets seized by the Communists.
Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer said Saturday after meeting Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, second in the Vatican hierarchy, that the two sides had agreed to set aside the restitution issue for now, given the economic crisis.
I can appreciate certain aspects of the article you quoted. However; I am far from being convinced that communism as it is in present day Russia and other nearby countries has really been eradicated or no longer practiced since the global media beamed satilite television footage of the whole world watching the Great Wall of Berlin come down. I’m sure there are numerous others around this world as well as myself, who see this spectacle as an illusion no matter how the (“Great Whore”) the global news media paints a convincing picture. Maybe someone could convince me and others in this world that communism in Russia and the Baltic States has been completely eradicated. And where did the Pope officially say that communism in Russia was over ?
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