VATICAN II AND CZECHOSLOVAKIA 113The Catholic press and Catholic associations were brought under
strict state control, as were all other manifestations of civil society
in the country. The regime quickly established a new organization
of pro-Communist clergy to replace the defunct MHKD. The new
organization was named Pacem in Terris, for Pope John XXIII’s cel-
ebrated encyclical.25
Lasting Reforms
The Prague Spring, short-lived though it was, gives an indica-
tion of the influence of Vatican II on Catholicism in Czech lands.
The DKO, which emerged as a result of both the Council and the
Prague Spring, replaced the pro-regime MHKD, which dissolved
itself on March 25, 1968.26 Though the organization was original-
ly intended to include only clergy, the laity soon became involved
in laying the groundwork; already before the DKO’s founding
congress in Velehrad in mid-May, laymen had made their mark.
At Velehrad, Czech and Slovak branches of the DKO were set up,
with Tomášek as chairman of the organization’s statewide pre-
sidium, which included laypeople.
Opening the May congress, Tomášek stated, “The purpose of
the DKO is to help the constituted Church hierarchy toward the
fulfillment of the conclusions of the Second Vatican Council in our
country.”27 The DKO’s goal was thus to bring together the hitherto-
scattered attempts to effect conciliar reforms in Czechoslovakia’s
Catholic Church and to prepare the ground for the eventual imple-
mentation of conciliar teachings via parish and diocesan councils,
pastoral councils, and other new institutions.
- Sabrina P. Ramet, Nihil Obstat: Religion, Politics, and Social Change in East-
Central Europe and Russia (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1998), 124. - On the DKO, see Cuhra, “Dílo koncilové obnovy v kontextu státne ̆-církevní
politiky pražkého jara,” in Koncil a česká společnost, 112–24; Svoboda, Na strane ̆ náro-
da, 66–71, 75–77; Balík and Hanuš, Katolická církev v Československu, 289. - Svoboda, Na strane ̆ národa, 69.