cardinal Jaroslav Dominik Duka

"As Pope Benedict XVI, this was back in the days of Pope Benedict XVI, was talking on the phone to the congregation, in my presence and in the presence of the Otčenášek and Bishop Kajnek: `Do everything you can to resolve this positively.' It was not resolved. When I was on that first visit 'ad limina' to Pope Francis, there had to be a harmony of the bishops' conference and the bishop of the place, so I asked, with the knowledge of the others, 'Holy Father, in the name of mercy, let's end this dispute.' The Pope promised, he called, and when I went there for the last time to get the results, I got the folder and found that nothing had been done about it. But I didn't find that out on the spot because you have a lot of paperwork and I can't... So I really admit that I gave up because I reached the end here. I don't have the strength, the power or the ability to sort it out."

"That prison was extremely important to me. It was also a meeting with the people who formed the first government and the first leadership of Czechoslovakia. But I can also say that out of that group of us came some of those basic ideas that were important. At first it seemed fantastic or phantasmagoric when the present General Čeřovský says: 'But count on it, the regime will fall. Brezhnev armed the Soviet Union, but he did not make it a superpower. And only the Charter [77] is capable of stepping in at the moment of the fall, because otherwise there will be chaos.' And of course, we had this vision that it would be something like the Yugoslav way, which we know from the days of going there on holiday, I know it from the stories only, but it was much more radical. And I don't think it's even been studied enough yet, how it all could have been."

"And when I was thirty and I was visiting my parents' home, my father said to me: 'Come with me...' He had a little work room there, it was originally a farmhouse, there by the barn, where he opened a secret drawer, because he had this special locksmith's desk, so many times we searched there as boys and so on, we made something, we didn't find out where the gun was and where the bullets were. And he says to me, 'Look, nobody knows about this but my mother, and now you know about it. You're thirty years old, you're an adult now.' And now I realize, looking back, because they, when they were locked up, they were spreading the word that they had guns. The truth is we had that English helmet in that Hradec Kralove flat and there was that English submachine gun and uniform. And in those moments, when my father was arrested, well, my mother was thinking and she said, 'Look, maybe they'll arrest me too.' So they prepared me for adoption, a cousin who was already married and had her children after the war, so I was to go to her family, and my sister was to be adopted by my mother's sister. What literature, magazines and other stuff was there, it was all taken out and kept by friends and relatives, well, here this armament and equipment mother took, we went to the Elbe, where Novák's garages are, I was paying attention and mother threw them in the water. I was a little bit sorry about it then, well, if they are still there, I guess it's hardly possible, it will be all corroded, because there was this concern. But at the same time, she must have known that the gun with the bullets was in the locksmith´s desk."

“I finished my ministry there (in the parsonage in Čížkov – ed.’s note). I have already moved part of my things to Pilsen to Revoluční Street No. 50 (where we obtained the premises for our community – ed.’s note) thanks to one of our priests, who was a lawyer and who in those years often served under the pseudonym Advocate of the Poor. (He was not the only one, there were several people called like that). A couple lived in that house; the wife was Croatian. Each of the three Dominicans purchased one fifth of the house. We thus owned three fifths, and the husband and wife had two fifths. In this way, we believed that we had at least some guarantee. We had a kind of a mini-community, which we established based on the model of Franciscan Father Baptista Bárta.”

“The turning point was there. My sister is three years younger, and not all things were discussed when she was present. For instance the issue of Pioneer (an organization for children, sanctioned by the communist regime – transl.’s note): we had witnessed the disbandment of the Boy Scout organization. We had therefore turned into tramps and we were trying to get hold of some Scout uniforms. When we were fourteen we were already going on cycling trips organized by ourselves. I wore a Scout shirt from my girl cousin, because my boy cousins did not have any Boy Scout shirts left. I have to admit that we really did bully the Pioneer children. Because they were in a minority. We were exercising our own rule, not with Pioneer and the Communist Party. When I think of it, even those people who were Party members and who had their children in Pioneer have never informed upon us. We were never investigated by the police. What we considered as the greatest act of heroism was when we were distributing pamphlets with Czechoslovak and American flags and the text: ‘The people of the USA salute the opposition movement in Czechoslovakia.’”

“In 1981-1982 I was sentenced to fifteen months of special workers’ university in the Bory prison. The leaders of Charter 77 and Catholic activists served their sentences there at that time, too, so there were Václav Havel, Jiří Dienstbier, Albert Černý, Václav Valeš, who was the minister of trade and the deputy prime minister before and after, and some others. There were also priests Lízna and Radim. Josef Vlček, who was the director of the publishing house Matice Cyrilometodějská, was there at that time, too. There was also colonel Zbyněk Čeřovský whom I mentioned. It was a fateful moment for me; after 1989 I found myself in a position when I was being asked: ‘Go there, arrange this and that, because you know Havel, you know Dienstbier…’ I was able to have access to them, which was somewhat important. On December 16, 1989 I was thus able to sit in Marián Čalfa’s office who became the prime minister. The talks were led by Ján Čarnogurský as the deputy prime minister, and later with Jozef Mikloško and with prime minister Čalfa, who was good to negotiate with. And I still have not left my position as a negotiator, although it’s a job I would not wish for anybody to have to go through.”

“I was on Wenceslas Square on August 21, 1969. But then we ran away, because I was there with doctor Metoděj Habáň who was as old as I am now. And I was really afraid for him, because they could have beaten him with a truncheon. I told him: ‘Father, we really need to get away, because they started arresting people here.’ I don’t even know how we managed to get out, but a waiter from Hotel Sofia let us pass through and he led us through the backyards and we emerged somewhere near the Wilson (Main – ed.’s note) train station.”