Tomáš Halík

“Charter 77 was quite a test for me; it spoke to my heart, and I was deeply connected with the people who signed it. So of course, I wanted to sign as well. But it was one year before my secret ordination as a Catholic priest and at that time, the leaders of our group told me: 'Make a choice, you cannot do both. As soon as you sign the Charter you will be exposed to police prosecution and you may endanger the existence of the whole network.' After a long period of soul searching, I decided to choose the Priest’s career. This fact - that I did not sign the Charter - I could not explain to my dissident friends for a long time. It was the same awkward secret that I could not explain to my mother why I was not getting married. "

"The interrogations made for a very interesting psychological and moral experience. I was not tortured, and I even had the feeling that I was respected by some of them because I kept my ground. I always talked to them politely and reasonably. They disclosed to me that they had searched for something in my life that they could discredit me with, but found nothing. Still, they tried to buy me over or intimidate me. This was a very important experience, because one had the feeling that he was in kind of a roentgen which identifies ones weak spots, and what one desires... ´Surely you would like to lecture again, we could arrange that´; ´Surely you would like to travel again, no problem, sign here´; or ´You know, you have an old mother, if you couldn't take care of her, that would be tough.´ So, one realizes what his desires, dreams, and fears are. It was great training for what can be called 'an inner freedom'."

There (at the Catholic convention in Velehrad, 14-15 May 1968), I saw for the first time all friaries in their clothes. Before that, on an April night in 1950, all monks were transported to concentration work camps, to divisions of PTP (criminal command), or put in jail. But one convent survived these raids: the Convent in Hájek, where – as the story goes – lived an old Franciscan, who, for ascetic reasons, slept in a coffin. So, when the police came with dogs and machine riffles, he sat up in his coffin and asked: 'What´s up?' They left the convent as fast as they could. That was the only convent left alone, but only for 24 hours, because the next day they came back and took everything including the 'dead'.

I had the opportunity, as well as 11,000 other Czechoslovaks, to go to Rome for the canonisation of St. Agnes of Bohemia in November, 1989. I sent a letter to the Pope through the exiled bishop, Škarvada, in which I asked for an interview. The answer was positive and so we (me and bishop Škarvada) were invited to talk with the Pope for an hour and a half. This was one day before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Pope told us: „Ta komuna se rozvali.“ Communism will fall, be ready. I disagreed with him, but he insisted: "It will be soon, be ready." And so it happend.