"I asked the commander of our unit if we could sing the CSLA anthem, and for that I got three days off duty, jail time. Well because it's the prayer 'Who are God's warriors'. So that CSLA anthem could only be played and never sung because it was a religious text. Such absurdities! And I went to jail for wanting to sing it. Nobody can understand that today."
"Semin wrote about me that I was a Hussite theologian to humilitate me. So the first reaction was that I would give him the Hussite way... No, I rejected that, Lord Jesus... no. And then I said to myself, 'This has to be handled differently'. I went to the theatre, I borrowed a mace, I borrowed an eye patch from the rental shop, and Lášek gave me the gown with the chalice. And I put it on at the Metro and went to the college. And they said, 'Professor, what happened?' And I said, 'Hear, hear, hear! Mr. Semin falsely claimed that I was a Hussite theologian, thereby committing a mortal sin against the Eighth Commandment. Since I know that he will not repent and I would save him from the flames of hell, I must become Brother Žižka for one day.' The students, dead from laughter, took photos with me. So then I went around the faculty, and when I came to Lobkowitz, he was giggling and saying, 'Professor, this is Oxford, this is how it would be handled at Oxford,' and he was delighted. Otto Mádr scolded me because he had no sense of humour. And Cardinal Little Red Riding Hood, that´s how we used to call Vlk (Wolf) (because he was a Wolf and he had that red thing, so we called him Little Red Riding Hood), so Little Red Riding Hood scolded me, and I didn't care, I was happy."
"Sort of. The worst interrogation was on November 20, 1984. And there they put this fifty-year-old State Security officer on me, who I didn't know. Well, the interrogation started, 'You think those two years are shit? We'll put you with the fags and You won't get out with a sane mind.' That's how the interrogation started. And then he says, 'That ID card, you won't see it again.' I had Comrade Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Ček, on the wall to let me know that nothing had changed. So it was psychological pressure. He said to me, 'Look, you come out from us, we will beat you with a car, we will kill you and it will be an accident and we won't find the perpetrator.' Normally that's how the interrogation went, so it wasn't pleasant. Or he'd say to me, 'Do you take the Metro in Prague? We're going to put you under it and you've committed suicide.' I was afraid for twenty years to stand near that, that line, and I always stood five metres away from it because I was afraid. That went on for twenty years from that interrogation, I was afraid someone was going to push me in."
"That was in the third year and the professor's name was Remes, a Czech teacher. So we were given the task to write an essay 'I introduce myself'. I couldn't get it right, I thought, 'I'll write the truth!' So I wrote that I was a believer, that the propaganda that dehumanizes faith with 19th century arguments is simply ridiculous, and that socialism, in the social sense, I accept, but there should be more... I just wrote what I thought. Very honestly. And now the evaluation was going on and the professor said, 'It turned out badly, there are so many C's, some F's, and Pospisil stays here after class.' She sat me down across from her and said, 'Where do you live?' And I said, 'In a free country, a democratic country.' 'Asshole! What did you write?' I said: 'The truth'. And she says, 'And nobody cares, you know?' And now she says, 'Right, you should be expelled from school. But I had my friends in the choir room read it and we voted on you. And the decision was: I've lost my job and I'm supposed to give you an A. And get out, asshole!' And then I went to see Father Norbert, he was a Franciscan, also in prison for many years, at Our Lady of the Snows, and I told him - you see, I was King-Kong - and he scolded me, he scolded me terribly. And he said to me, 'You idiot, do you know what danger you put those professors in?' And then he added, 'Some of them come here to confess to me, you idiot.'" And he fired me. I think that's quite illustrative. It's awfully hard to judge. There was the Charter, wasn't there, and now the Anti-Charters were being signed, and the radio came on, Comrade Director Soucek spoke to us. And that he knew that we were all against the Charter and that he had signed it for us and that we had already fulfilled it. And now we said, "How come? Nobody asked us!' And now the class teacher said: 'You bastards! Comrade headmaster knows that you're asses and that many of you wouldn't sign it, and we couldn't let you graduate. And so that we wouldn't have to fire you, he signed it for you. And be glad your hands aren't dirty because he got them dirty!' And today I see how wise that was!"
Ctirad Václav Pospíšil was born on 4 March 1958 in Trnava to Czech parents Ctirad and Helena Pospíšilovi. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Bohemia, first to Lochovice in the Beroun region, and later to Spořilov in Prague, where his father took a job as a district doctor. His parents were always openly committed to the Catholic Church and brought up their children in the faith as well. During his adolescence, the witness was approached by the personalities of the Franciscan Order, which was secretly active at that time, and he was admitted to it in 1980. As a member of the religious community, he made experience of interrogations, searches and harassment by state security. In 1988, after completing the Order’s theological studies, he received secret priestly ordination at the hands of Bishop Peter Dubovsky. In November 1989, he attended the canonization of Agnes of Bohemia in Rome as well as the subsequent Velvet Revolution events in Prague. In 1990, he began his doctoral studies at the Pontifical University Antonianum in Rome, after which he taught systematic theology at theological faculties in Olomouc, Prague and České Budějovice. He was appointed professor of theology in 2002. He is the author of a number of professional publications, mainly focused on Christology, Trinitarian theology and Mariology. In 2013, he was incardinated into the Archdiocese of Prague, where he continued to serve as a clergyman as of 2023.
