124 JAMES RAMON FELAK
founder could have respected. This was a Catholic Church in the
process of renewal, seeking unity with other Christians and a
positive presence in the world. It had become a church in pursuit
of “humility, patience, mutual respect, and altruistic service.”52 In
this way, Zvěřina sought to reconcile one of the greatest figures of
modern Czech history with the Church from which he had apos-
tatized as a young man. Zvěřina’s success would remove a crucial
barrier separating Czech liberal nationalism from Catholicism.
The intensified concern for human rights that began to char-
acterize the postconciliar Church throughout the world was not
without its impact in the Czech lands. Lay Catholics such as math-
ematician and activist Václav Benda and priests such as Zvěřina
and Václav Malý became prominent figures in the Charter 77 hu-
man rights movement.53 Malý was also a cofounder of the Com-
mittee for the Defense of the Unjustly Persecuted (Výbor na Ob-
ranu Nespravedlivě Stíhaných, or VONS). Almost by definition,
human rights advocacy in the Czech lands entailed dialogue and
cooperation with non-Catholics and nonbelievers, keeping in tune
with the spirit of the Council.
Such cooperation dated not only to the Prague Spring, but even
back to the early 1950s, when Catholics, Protestants, and Marxists
had bonded while together in Stalinist-era prisons.54 Even though
Archbishop Tomášek at first distanced himself and the Church
from VONS, by the mid-1980s he, too, was speaking out on behalf
of religious freedom and human rights in Czechoslovakia.55 To this
end, he was influenced and inspired by the example and encour-
- Ibid., 132.
- For a discussion of Catholics and Charter 77, see Luxmoore and Babiuch, “In
Search of Faith, Part 2: Charter 77 and the Return to Spiritual Values in the Czech
Republic,” Religion, State and Society 23, no. 3 (1995): 291–304. - Ibid., 297.
- For an explanation of Tomášek’s initial reluctance to support Charter 77 and
his subsequent change of heart, see František Tomášek, Kardinál Tomášek: Svědectví
o dobrém katechetovi, bojácném biskupovi a statečném kardinálovi, ed. Jan Hartmann
(Prague: Zvon České katolické nakladatelství, 1994), 63–71.