“It was a conspiracy, back then we didn’t have any mobile phones. We had a whole lot of those, what we Salesians like to call, cottage houses. In Slovakia, too. On that day, it was a Friday, the holiday of the Raising of the Holy Cross on 14 September, someone asked: ‘Where is Dominus, when will come?’ Nobody knew, so I said: ‘I’ll go talk a walk to Štrba to the station. Maybe I’ll run into him on the way.’ Well, really, the first fast train I saw and there he was. He takes a look at me and says: ‘You knew I would come.’ – ‘I didn’t know anything.’ He said: ‘If you hadn’t come, I would have gone back home. I have no idea where I’m supposed to be going.’ So we went on foot, without the electric. I asked him if I would be able to take my eternal vows. He was a total realist and said: ‘Look. Don’t. What do we have to offer you? Only persecution. They’ll lock you up anyway for working the kids. I really don’t recommend it.’ And it was in that moment that it was confirmed for me even more. Sometimes you often here those holy words: ‘Do you have a calling? Of course. Follow it. God is calling you.’ And he was saying: ‘Maybe God is calling you, but it’s going to be a rough ride.’ It was a beautiful celebration in that small space at the cottage.”
“Then they stopped, after maybe three hours. Their boss came, I know his name but I am not going to say it. My brothers told me that he had interrogated them too. But I had the feeling that he himself was suffering from it as well. He was already an older man. He was a bit stooped over. It’s probably not work that you can do normally. He started in a completely different way. He started by saying that my state permission would be retracted in any case and that I was going to be a medic in the hospital, an ambulance driver. He told me that they already knew plenty about me but that I would be able to save myself if I promised to inform on my colleagues. I think that if one were to take such an offer, then maybe they would immediately become a dean somewhere in Frýdek. I think that he was suffering from it himself, he was an older man. There was nothing here for me to think about. I told him: ‘Look. You think that I would rat on the priest for you? There’s no way of that happening, so perhaps we can say goodbye right now. When he heard that I didn’t want to have anything to do with it, he ended the conversation very abruptly, saying that I would lose my state permission.”
“That group of teenagers was able to have eight members. We met at each other’s apartments. Standa (Stanislav) loved to cook. They always left us in the kitchens of those apartments and he would teach how to cook meals. We arranged some camps in Lešany, where the Kvapil family linage was. They always came to an agreement one way or another with the foresters, so there were never any surprises. The group soon started to grow. Meanwhile, I left to Brno for conservatory. Stanislav came to the conclusion, and I think from the programming perspective it was a very good thing, that we should split up. He said: ‘Listen. You take four boys and you’ll take care of them. And then I’ll have my own, too.’ It sounded good to me. At the time Stanislav still hadn’t been ordained, but there were always spiritual elements in what we were doing anyway. Every Saturday when I came from Brno, I had to prepare a program for those boys. It was a lot of hard work, but it was very gratifying.”
František Kunetka se narodil 26. listopadu 1945 v Olomouci. Od raného dětství ministroval v dominikánském kostele, kde se později učil hrát na varhany, poznal salesiány a rozhodl se být knězem. Tajně vedl skupinku chlapců, pro kterou připravoval skautský a duchovní program. Od roku 1963 studoval na brněnské konzervatoři hru na varhany. Vstoupil do řádu salesiánů a pod jejich formací se tajně připravoval na kněžství. Když se obnovila teologická fakulta v Olomouci v roce 1968, studoval zde a připravoval se na kněžství oficiálně. V roce 1973 tak složil tajné řeholní sliby a 22. června 1974 byl vysvěcený na kněze. Jako kaplan v Zábřehu působil velice aktivně v pastoraci mládeže, což bylo nežádoucí, a tak ho přeložili do Branné. Začala se o něj zajímat Státní bezpečnost a jako nepřátelskou osobu ho sledovala a dvakrát vyslýchala. V roce 1981 ho přemístili do odlehlé pohraniční farnosti Čeladná. Jezdil do Krakova a později do Erfurtu, kde studoval na univerzitě liturgiku. Sám ji potom tajně vyučoval v Československu na bytových seminářích. V roce 1983 ho přemístili do Karlovce, kde se dočkal konce totalitního režimu. V roce 1990 obnovoval teologickou fakultu v Olomouci, stal se proděkanem pro studium a vedl katedru liturgiky.
