I didn’t want to be in a party. I needed my hands free to share life with people
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Josef Kaše was born on September 29, 1944 into a Catholic family in Močerady in Domažlice area. He also spent the last year of World War II there. They then moved to nearby Staňkov, where Josef attended elementary school. Due to the practice of the Christian faith, he could not continue his studies in 1958. He refused to join Pionýr and the Socialist Youth Union. He trained as an electrician in Škodovka in Pilsen and entered a technical school. In 1967 he moved to Pilsen. The big turning point came when in 1969 he participated in the camps of the American Christian organization Young Life in Austria and Norway, which opened his eyes. He wished to organize a similar event in Czechoslovakia. He graduated in September 1969 and after a month started working at the Institute of Technical Supervision. After background checks in 1972, he was fired from his job, mainly because of his Christian beliefs. He worked as an elevator inspection technician for eighteen years. He organized traveling camps and regular meetings of young people not only with spiritual themes, these events were a kind of light in the gray of normalization. As a result of these activities, he did not escape the interrogations of State Security. On September 6, 1980, he married Ilona Nevláčilová, together they raised four sons, whom they led to the Christian faith. In January 1990, Josef Kaše and his colleague founded a prosperous company for the assembly and revision of elevators. In 1992, he began to devote himself to the faithful in the parishes. Eight years later, the family moved to Chotíkov to the rectory. Josef Kaše became a member of the pastoral council of the diocese of the Pilsen bishopric. On November 17, 2018 he received the Honorary Plaque of the Governor of the Pilsen Region for his courageous civic attitudes.
