A controversial and unpopular proposal for the Czech state to compensate the Catholic Church and other religious orders and groups for property confiscated by the communist regime has been defended by the country’s Minister of Culture and the top representative of the Roman Catholic Church.
The proposed restitution of 56 percent of confiscated property, estimated to be worth around Kč 75 billion, and payment of Kč 59 billion over 30 years is one of the most heated political issues in Czech politics with the government of Prime Minister Petr Nečas coming under fire from within his own Civic Democrat (ODS) ranks, the wider center-right government coalition and left-wing opposition for the unpopular move.
Calls have been made to postpone the restitution proposal, which still has to win parliamentary support, because of the economic situation and ongoing austerity measures or ditch the settlement altogether in what is often described as one of the most atheistic countries of Europe.
A settlement with the church has dragged out for more than 22 years since the fall of the communist regime at the end of 1989. President Václav Klaus even ventured briefly into the debate to voice his concerns about aspects of the restitution agreement.
Minister of Culture Alena Hanáková (TOP 09) warned at a conference on restitution in Prague on Tuesday of the consequences if the current deal was ditched. She said that the agreement protected land owned by local councils and individuals which could be claimed by the church from being caught up in a far reaching legal dispute. Such a dispute could freeze repairs to buildings standing on disputed land, new building works and threaten EU funded projects, she warned.
The proposed deal with the church would phase out current payments of church wages by the state, which last year amounted to Kč 1.44 billion, Hanáková said. These payments are likely to rise in future years with around nine new churches lined up to register for state funding, she added.
Hanáková blamed the unpopularity and foot dragging over church restitution over on Czech society’s “problem to come to terms with its past.” The myth was rooted in people’s minds that most of the church’s property was stolen in the first place following the Battle of the White Mountain, outside Prague, in 1620.
Catholic forces defeated the largely Protestant nobles lined up against them with their property confiscated afterwards with Roman Catholicism imposed on the country afterwards.
It is widely regarded as the end of Czech nationhood until the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918. The communist attack on the church was based on such prejudices, she added.
The country’s top Catholic, Cardinal Dominik Duka, argued that what was at stake was the principle of democracy in the Czech Republic. “These solutions are not about restitution but about the functioning of democracy and the legal foundations of our country,” he said at the close of his speech.
To counter the widespread unpopularity of ongoing state payments to the church, Duka pointed out that the annual budget for the Roman Catholic church amounted to about the same amount as the country’s national theater or the budget of a first league football team.
No delay
Cardinal Duka added that the economic crisis should not be used as an argument to stall the restitution deal, pointing out that the payments would be made over many years, and said he could not imagine a court being asked top deal with the issue or a referendum being called about it.
The main opposition Social Democrats (ČSSD) says the restitution is too generous to the church and it will get back property without the constraints put on its use before it was confiscated.