The Secretary-General of the Czech bishop conference had to go
At the end of October has Mons. Simandl (49) with archbishop January Graubner submitted of Olmütz, the president of the Czech bishop conference, its resignation as a Secretary-General of the bishop conference. Reason: Collaboration with the former communist regime.
Mons. Simandl had submitted at the end of of Octobers with archbishop January Graubner of Olmütz, the president of the Czech bishop conference, its resignation. Reason: Simandl worked fifteen years as an informant of the communist public security of Czechoslovakia.
That there were in the Czechoslovakian Klerus collaborators, never was a secret. 1971 created the Ministry for culture the regime-faithful priest combination „Pacem in Terris “, those after an encyclical of Pope Johannes XXIII. was designated. Priests, who joined the organization, received higher wages and other advantages. They could inform at theological faculties and had the right to undertake foreign journeys.
1980 dissociated itself the archbishop at that time from Prague, Frantisek cardinal Toma sec., from the combination. It complained it belonging priests on to depend completely on the communist regime and to avoid the contact with the catholic hierarchy. Regarding the year 1989 „Pacem went down regarding Terris “together with the communist rule.
Cardinal Vlk said interview to him that he had had a discussion with all priests of his Diözese, which would have collaborated with the public security: „I discovered that the majority was forced by them with threats against her or their families to collaborate. I asked the priests at that time, itself publicly for what they did to excuse. But these personal steps were not carried out. Therefore I apologized in an article, which was published 1993, in the name of these priests. “
Cardinal Vlk was annuallong occupied with professional ban during the communist time and had to earn itself its living costs as window cleaners in Prague.
The case of the withdrawn Secretary-General of the bishop conference is substantially more serious than those of the priests mentioned. Simandls dossier was discovered last year in the official lists of the ministry of the Interior, said the cardinal: „However we did not recognize at that time, weight its that it did. “
1974, during its years in the seminar for priests, were already contacted Simandl by the communist public security. It is to be owed to its readiness for collaboration that it was allowed to remain in - at that time officially forbidden - the seminar for priests.
Simandl was not 20 years old yet, when he began his co-operation with state security. Its informant activity ended only with the collapse of communism in the year 1989.
Mons. Simandl was useful in these years particularly due to its activity in the Vatikan. It passed information about seminarists in the Collegio Nepomuceno, to the Czech seminar for priests on in Rome, to the communists. There studied young priest students, who had often left their homeland as refugees and by the regime were pursued.
According to cardinal Vlk will meet the withdrawn Secretary-General of the Czech bishop conference in the near future with his bishop. It is probable that it as Seelsorger for a Czech-speaking Pfarrei am abroad determined.
2 reader opinions:Thursday, 16 December 2004 22:15
Dolfus: From the editorship removes
Thursday, 16 December 2004 22:14
Dolfus: Everyone loves
the betrayal, but no the traitor.
Such people annoy probably few in the church today, one are too much accustomed them.
Such people annoy probably few in the church today, one are too much accustomed them.
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Fladenbrot fair:
