Religion in Czech Republic

I don't link to blog posts in Czech, but I will make an exception this time. Patrick Zandl talks about religion in general, but with some connection to Czech Republic.

First, let me give you some background. US Department of State writes about Czech Republic

the vast majority of the citizens do not identify themselves as members of any organized religion. In a 2001 opinion poll, 38 percent of respondents claimed to believe in God, while 52 percent identified themselves as atheists.

This makes Czech Republic one of the least religious country in the world, something most of us are proud of. The reason is not, however, 40 years of communism (as USDoS claims), but the whole history of Czech people.

One of the most influential events was a protestant movement in early fifteen century. The movement was started by Jan Hus, who is now considered a national hero. Why? He was promised him a peaceful negotiation in Kostnice and then burned by catholics alive. Then the "Czech Kingdom" was conquered and population forced to catholicism. We have been oppressed for a few hundred years, catholic church hand in hand with royalty.

Czech National Revival and the first World War put an end to it. Czech Nation was free for about 20 years before Hitler came. Don't even ask what was the official policy of the church. You probably should not even ask where current pope was at that time. After the WWII, we were free for about 3 years and than the communism came. Unsurprisingly, they were no friends of the Church either.

So after the turmoil where Czech people believe in something, were punished for it, were forced into something, then were betrayed and prohibited from doing something, their lack of enthusiasm is understandable. Well, the story did not end there. Till today, Catholic church is negotiating with Czech government how much property they will get back (including schools, hospitals, houses, farms etc.). To a laymen it seems that they care more about their political power and wealth than about anything else. Churches are empty and rotting.

Somewhat surprisingly, many people have religious believes and most of them believe that there is something beyond our lives. Many people believe in God. They just don't believe that any church represents him. Priests and especially higher level officials are so far away from our lives that when they speak, most people think that they are just crazy. Czech society is naturally liberal and mostly cynical. Czech kids drink beer from 15, if not earlier and they have sex from about the same time. They are not being forbidden, but they are taught about condoms, diseases. They know about the dangers of interruption (physical, not moral) and surprise, surprise, the number of interruptions in Czech Republic declined from 100,000 in 1990 to less than 25500. (Numbers reflect artificial (induced) interruption, not naturally occurring one).

When "church" occasionally tries to propose rules that would forbid interruptions (they probably have to do it by order from Rome, because it really does not have any chance in Czech Republic), they try to force their own believes on other people, who don't share their views. It's hardly a reasonable way how gain the trust.