VATICAN II AND CZECHOSLOVAKIA 123tion as manifested under Dubček. Each tradition, in Skalický’s es-
timation, represented a different kind of freedom for the Czechs,
such as linguistic, cultural, religious, civil, and social.
Having demonstrated the great heterogeneity and complexity
of the Czech national-historical consciousness, Skalický argued
that what holds these varied elements together and gives them
continuity is Jesus Christ. Skalický’s attempt to produce a way of
thinking about the Czech past and present integrating a variety
of otherwise disparate currents can be seen as an example of the
sort of broad dialogue with all components of society demanded
by Vatican II. More specifically, by attempting to synthesize Cath-
olic and Protestant traditions, he advanced the ecumenical mis-
sion of the Council.
Back home, the most significant and prominent Czech Catho-
lic theologian was Josef Zvěřina, released in 1965 from a lengthy
prison term. His short samizdat work of 1980, Malý hovor katolick-
ého teologa o TGM, was another indication that the spirit of Vati-
can II was stimulating new thinking about the Czech past. Seventy
years earlier, Tomáš Masaryk had been a fervent critic of the Cath-
olic Church of his time, accusing it of superficiality, pharasaism,
an anti-scientific attitude, counterproductive moral and political
activity, and entanglement in the “theocratic” Austrian state.50
Zvěřina lamented the Church’s inability at that time to accept Ma-
saryk’s valid rebukes, responding to them with repentance and
purification, while addressing his unjustified rebukes with an hon-
est, straightforward dialogue.51 Instead, the Church replied with
calumny, anger, and anti-Semitism, as well as political and judicial
interventions.
The Church of Vatican II, however, was a different story. It
was slowly ridding itself of much of what had bothered Masaryk,
transforming itself into a Catholic Church that Czechoslovakia’s
- Josef Zvěřina, “Malý hovor katolického teologa o TGM,” in Teologické texty;
časopis pro teoretické a praktické otázky teologie, no. 4 (1997): 130–32. - Ibid., 131.