Czech church seeks to reconcile Czechs, Germans - Cardinal Vlk
Passau - The Czech Catholic Church has sought to achieve reconciliation between the Czech Republic and Germany since the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1991 but it has failed to achieve it in society, Cardinal Miloslav Vlk writes in the German daily Passauer Neue Presse.
In an interview published before Pope Benedict XVI's forthcoming visit to the Czech Republic Czech Catholic Church Primate Vlk says that reconciliatory gestures by church dignitaries have found no response among politicians.
The pope will visit the Czech Republic on September 26-28.
The daily says that the Pope comes from Bavaria where many Germans who were transferred from the former Czechoslovakia after World War Two have settled.
It points out that voices have appeared in the Czech Republic that Benedict XVI could be the mouthpiece of Sudeten Germans.
"I will respond to this with a counter-question of whether there are any proofs of this," Vlk writes.
After the war, bishops called on the then government not to implement the collective guilt principle in the deportation of Germans and adopt a human approach. They wrote this in their pastoral letter and in a memorandum which they sent to the cabinet, Vlk writes.
Documents of the former communist secret police, StB, confirm that the Czech and German bishops held talks in 1968 on a reconciliatory meeting of both countries' Catholics in Litomerice, north Bohemia, Vlk writes.
He says that the Czech Catholic Church resumed its contacts with the Bavarian church in 1990, shortly after the 1989 Velvet Revolution that toppled the communist regime in Czechoslovakia.
The two countries' Bishops Conferences exchanged letters with mutual excuses for past atrocities.
The preparedness for reconciliation is visible in the church circles, Vlk says.
"We hoped that we were giving a sign to civic society by this. But we have failed," Vlk says.
The reason is the former communist regime that "cultivated the idea of alleged German revanchism" in society and provoked the impression that people on the other side of the border threaten security and want to take everything away from Czechs, Vlk writes.
The church reconciliatory gestures had no impact on politics, he says.
"Politicians on both sides, but especially in the Czech Republic, did not perceive it as the key moment. On the contrary. They have used nationalism as a trump card in elections and during other events," Vlk says.
The Pope whose mother tongue is German will not speak German during his visit to the Czech Republic but will opt for Italian and English.
According to the media, the reason is that he does not want to open old wounds from the past in Czechs.
However, this is a myth, Vlk says.
He says the Pope wants to address young people who mainly speak English. Italian is a language close to liturgy, Vlk added.
Vlk's interview today was published a few hours before Czech President Vaclav Klaus's participation in a debate with Vienna Archbishop Christoph Schoenborn in the office of the Passau publishing house.