VATICAN II AND CZECHOSLOVAKIA 101elite-driven, with new forces among the party leadership emerg-
ing in the course of the 1960s to challenge the old guard.
This chapter explores the Catholic Church in the Czech lands
during this period, when Vatican II and its immediate aftermath
overlapped with the Prague Spring and its antecedents. It will look
at the effects of both Council and Prague Spring on the develop-
ment of Czechoslovak-Vatican relations during this period; at the
role of Czech Catholics at the Council; at the emergence of Catholic
activism during the explosion of reformism in 1968 and the ensu-
ing concessions by the regime; at the implications for the Church
when a Soviet-sponsored invasion crushed the Prague Spring in
August 1968 and then imposed a hard-line “normalization” regime;
and at the contributions of certain key Czech Catholic intellectuals
to issues connected with the Council, especially how best to “ac-
culturate” Catholicism to a Czech environment. Because the center
of gravity of the Prague Spring was in the Czech lands, especially
in the capital city of Prague, and because ecclesiastically Slovakia
was another world from the Czech lands in terms of the role and
history of the Church, as well as piety and religious identification,
this chapter will concentrate on the Czech Catholic Church.3
Czechoslovak Bishops at the Council
Before this chapter reflects on the transformation of Czech Ca-
tholicism in the 1960s, two important historical features of con-
- Slovakia had a much higher level of religious belief and confessional affiliation
than did the Czech lands; within the latter, Moravia significantly surpassed Bohemia.
For example, according to a poll taken in autumn 1968, 71 percent of Slovaks identi-
fied themselves as religious believers, compared with 13 percent of Czechs from a poll
taken in 1974; Kieran Williams, “The Prague Spring: From Elite Liberalisation to Mass
Movement,” in Revolution and Resistance in Eastern Europe: Challenges to Communist
Rule, ed. Kevin McDermott and Matthew Stibbe (Oxford: Berg, 2006), 109. Those in-
terested in Slovakia during this period should consult Jozef Jurko, Druhý vatikánsky
koncil a Slovensko (Bardejov: Bens, 1999). For an outstanding study of the role of Slo-
vak Communists in the Prague Spring, see Scott A. Brown, “Socialism with a Slovak
Face: The Slovak Question in the 1960s” (Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 2010).