Thursday, May 17, 2012

Return of property not decisive for church, Prague archbishop says

The question of the return of property to churches is not and was not the decisive factor for the life of Catholic church in the Czech state, Prague Archbishop Cardinal Dominik Duka said Saturday.

The life story of Prague Archbishop Antonin Brus who was appointed to the post in the 16th century was a guarantee of this, Duka said.

The Prague archbishopric was renewed 450 years ago, after a 140-year pause caused by the Hussite war in the early 15th century.

"The story of Archbishop Antonin Brus is also the guarantee that the question of return of Church property has not been the decisive factor for the life of Catholic church in the Czech state," Duka said.

"A partial compensation and settlement of property affairs only occurred 100 years later, when the post of Prague archbishop was held by Cardinal Arnost Vojtech Harrach," Duka said in the pastoral letter published on the occasion of celebrations of the 450th anniversary of the renewed Prague archbishopric.

Under the government bill, churches should get back more than a half of the property worth about 75 billion crowns that was confiscated from them under the Czechoslovak communist regime and 59 billion crowns are to paid to them in compensation for the rest over a period of 30 years starting next year.

Simultaneously, the state will gradually cease to finance the churches. 

The transitional period is to last 17 years.

The left-wing opposition sharply criticises both sums. 

Public opinion polls have showed that a majority of Czechs are also against the proposed settlement.