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Faith and Freedom After Communism

by Father Dominic Legge, OP 

Prague is a city of magnificent beauty, its medieval Old Town a stunning monument to the culture, artistic genius, and deep Christian spirituality of the middle ages. Outside of the historic center, however, stand ranks of massive communist apartment blocks, testifying to the communist dogma that man is only matter – a mere worker, a factor of production, a creature of the State – and not a spiritual being with a right to be free.

This contrast in stone and steel makes visible a profound truth about man and about God: God loves human freedom and made man to be free, but a man who denies that he is God’s creature corrupts himself, and turns himself into an enemy of human freedom. The history of communist Czechoslovakia proves it.

Two weeks ago, after attending an academic conference in Poland, another American Dominican and I took a brief side-trip to Prague to visit the Dominican priory there, and to make a pilgrimage to the Shrine of the Divine Infant of Prague. On the train, we met a Slovak Dominican priest, Fr. Peter, traveling to Bratislava. His story is but a sliver of the terrible persecution the Church has endured in our own time under atheist regimes founded on the belief that science proves that man has no need of God. 

The Dominican Order, like all religious orders of men in communist Czechoslovakia, was outlawed in 1950; many Dominicans were arrested, some executed, and the rest forced underground. (The persecution of the Church was much more virulent in Czechoslovakia than in neighboring Poland and East Germany, where religious orders were at least permitted to remain openly in existence.) Although when Fr. Peter entered the Dominican Order in the mid-1970s, matters had improved, it was still necessary for him to keep his new life hidden. He received the habit in secret and moved into a house where two other older Dominican priests lived alongside a married couple who provided cover for this secret outpost of friars. The young Dominican was obliged, as were all friars, to work a full-time job in a government factory, never acknowledging openly his religious consecration. Later suspected of being a Dominican, he was routinely questioned by the secret police. When he was finally ordained a priest, he had to keep it secret even from his family – were word to reach the communists, they would arrest not only him, but the bishop who ordained him and all of the Dominicans with whom he had contact. He had to wait over a decade to celebrate his first public Mass.

His own story was typical, Fr. Peter said, and he had it easy compared to some. Another Dominican once received a visit from an East German Dominican, who had been surreptitiously followed by the secret police.  After leaving the house, the East German was stopped and interrogated: Had he celebrated Mass with the man in the house? Not realizing that this was a crime (it was not so in East Germany), the German friar admitted that they had concelebrated together. The Czech Dominican was promptly arrested and sentenced to a year and a half in prison – for one Mass. Another friar, Dominik Duka (named the new archbishop of Prague by Pope Benedict earlier this year), spent a year in prison, sharing a cell with Václav Havel, for his work as an underground priest.

In the midst of Prague’s Old Town stands the church that houses the Shrine of the Infant of Prague, with its small statue of the baby Jesus wearing a royal crown and holding an orb symbolizing his sovereignty over all creation. In that holy place, the faithful of Prague and of the world continue to kneel in prayer to the omnipotent God who became a humble and helpless baby for our sake. What a contrast with the arrogance of the communists, who in the name of man destroyed human freedom! Our God is no enemy of freedom; he is its source and its protector. The devotion to Christ the Infant and King shows that God, who is indeed an all-powerful sovereign, is not to be feared, but loved and adored. He comes not as a tyrant, but as a servant; he comes to serve, not to be served; he comes to liberate, not to enslave.

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(The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Headline Bistro or the Knights of Columbus.)