Pope’s Lukewarm Reception in Czech Republic From Condom Groups

Last month, the population of the Czech Republic was split in their opinions about Pope Benedict XVI’s visit. While some hastily cleaned up their schedules to be sure to catch a glimpse of the pope, others simply shrugged and wondered what all the hubbub was about. Many in this region have become a bit disillusioned with religion after being pulled out from under the thumb of a communist regime that spent a lot of effort in discriminating against the Catholic Church. Some residents even seemed a bit bitter about the papal visit, including resident Veronika Kucerova who stated, “When I think about his old-fashioned, even nonsensical views of the world, you can’t expect me to be among those who will line the streets to greet him.”

Others cited the faltering economy as a reason for the Pope to not waste his time visiting, including Kveta Tomasovicova, a worker at the Prague National Library, “It’s just a waste of money. At a time of economic crisis, when our salaries are going down, the visit is a useless investment.” The Vatican is well aware that Pope Benedict XVI’s visit would act more as a missionary trip to a region where religion has been almost entirely deserted. Rev. Federico Lombardi, a spokesman for the pope admits that in the modern Czech Republic “the practice of religion is reduced to a minority.” While the “Velvet Revolution” of 1989 ended the communist regime through protests, it did not alleviate the strict repression of the church that had become a strong theme of that communist period.

The communist regime took control of then-Czechoslovakia in 1948 and proceeded to take over all property that was owned by the Catholic churches while harshly pursuing the priests. While churches were still allowed to be functioning entities, they could do so only under the strict supervision of the communist state. Despite communism in that region being overthrown over twenty years ago, there are still former church properties that the Catholic Church is still fighting to get control of from the government. This has caused some Czechs to slowly lose their faith as they believe the church is demonstrating that it cares less about retrieving lost souls than it does about retrieving lost real estate. One resident from Brno, Klara Kucerova, states, “”Czechs are getting less religious every year. They are more interested in horoscopes or other kinds of magical predictions.”

Other groups also planned to be vocal about their strong opinions about the current pope. A group naming themselves Condom Positive had plans to hand out condoms at the open-air masses that showed an image of the pope and the inscription, “Papa said no! And you?” Yet another pro-condom group named Condoms for the Pope wanted to walk around with inflated condoms as a way of signaling their anger at the pope who stated this year that condoms would not help the AIDS epidemic in Africa. The group issue a statement that said the pope “clearly shows us that he is more interested in preserving dogma than saving the lives of African women, men and children.”