126 JAMES RAMON FELAK
Conclusions
Coming a few years after Vatican II, but trying to do much the
same for Czechoslovakia’s Communist regime as the Council had
done for the Church, the Prague Spring gave reform-minded Com-
munists the opportunity to enact a “socialism with a human face.”
This then became the context in which the Church in the Czech
lands could implement its own changes based on the Council. The
brief blossoming of reform communism presented Czech Catho-
lics with greater access to Western theological currents; increased
opportunities for dialogue with non-Catholics and nonbelievers,
including Marxists; lay access to seminary education; and greater
freedom overall for the Church to operate.
Though the Warsaw Pact invasion of August 1968 meant that
these changes would be short-lived, both for the reform Commu-
nists and for the Church, Vatican II’s influence continued under
“normalization,” albeit in a different, attenuated form. The legacy
of the Council lived on in Catholic human rights activism, coop-
eration with non-Catholic dissidents, and certain lay initiatives.
It also gave support to those currents in Czech Catholic thought
that sought to reconcile Catholicism with an often anti-Catholic
Czech national tradition, thereby removing obstacles standing be-
tween Czech patriotism and the Church. A particularly crucial ve-
hicle for this reconciliation was the vernacular liturgy. While the
springtime of Czech communism indeed gave way to the bleak
winter of “normalization,” the parallel and interrelated spring-
time of Czech Catholicism did not disappear entirely. Instead, it
sustained itself in new ways during the closing years of Commu-
nist rule over the Czech lands.