Czechs, Slovaks, Poles

At a spectacular jubilee celebration for St. Cyril and St. Methodius, Apostles of the Western Slavs, in Velehrad, hundreds of thousands of Czech and Slovak Catholics cheered the absent Pope (he had been refused an entrance permit) and booed the cabinet minister who had come from Prague. Slovak Catholics also demonstrated on the Feast of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows in Sastin, the famous pilgrimage shrine. The apogee of the feast was the High Mass celebrated by Bishop Gabris of Tyrnau—72 years old, gravely ill, and blind—who exhorted those present, and especially the youth, to remain undaunted defenders of their faith. Also present were youngsters from nearby Moravia, who shouted together with the Slovaks: “We want the Pope.”

Though the Czechs of Bohemia and Moravia are related to the Slovaks, the former have lived in community with Germans in areas that belonged to Austria, the latter in community with Magyars in Hungary. Their linguistic similarity hides a great difference in mentality. The Czechs, though most of them are nominally Catholics, have an anti-Roman record: They staged the fanatical Hussite rebellion; they gave birth to the first (Czech and German) National Socialist Parties; and in the 1920s they had the largest (per population) Communist Party west of the USSR.

EK

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Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

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Religious Persecution

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At a spectacular jubilee celebration for St. Cyril and St. Methodius, Apostles of the Western Slavs, in Velehrad, hundreds of thousands of Czech and Slovak Catholics cheered the absent Pope (he had been refused an entrance permit) and booed the cabinet minister who had come from Prague. Slovak Catholics also demonstrated on the Feast of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows in Sastin, the famous pilgrimage shrine. The apogee of the feast was the High Mass celebrated by Bishop Gabris of Tyrnau—72 years old, gravely ill, and blind—who exhorted those present, and especially the youth, to remain undaunted defenders of their faith. Also present were youngsters from nearby Moravia, who shouted together with the Slovaks: “We want the Pope.”

Though the Czechs of Bohemia and Moravia are related to the Slovaks, the former have lived in community with Germans in areas that belonged to Austria, the latter in community with Magyars in Hungary. Their linguistic similarity hides a great difference in mentality. The Czechs, though most of them are nominally Catholics, have an anti-Roman record: They staged the fanatical Hussite rebellion; they gave birth to the first (Czech and German) National Socialist Parties; and in the 1920s they had the largest (per population) Communist Party west of the USSR.