Monsignor František Radkovský

"In the summer after that, I had my sister-in-law visiting with her children, two boys and a girl, and other friends. And I arranged with the local children who went to church that I would prepare them for their first Holy Communion. We had arranged for them to come in the afternoon. I also had an engaged couple in the parish house, so I was speaking to them. And now I saw a State Security member, the one in charge of church, walking past the windows. I had already known him, he was also present at the investigation. I ran to my sister-in-law and said: A State Security member is coming, tell him I can't come now, I'm preparing the engaged couple. Tell him to come back in half an hour, we still have to get the children out of the house so he wouldn't see them here.' But she went to open the door and a bunch of kids followed her. She told the State Security man to come in half an hour, that I had an engaged couple there. But the children started shouting, 'What, in half an hour, then he´s having us!' That was a touchy situation! But fortunately he was such an ordinary guy, he wasn't so bad or so clever. He came in, I served him coffee, plum brandy, as was the custom. He said: 'There are rumours in the backstage in Pilsen that your colleague's consent [state consent to be a priest, trans.] will be taken away.' Then I said: 'Well, that's a mistake, I need him.' Well, with that I scored my own goal. He said, 'Well, I can´t decide it.' Of course he also could decide it! 'I don't decide, but I can plead with them not to take it from him, and I'd come in here like today sometimes.' And I thought, 'You idiot, you stepped in it. That's how you got a State Security member to come to your parish and you should cooperate. No way!' We had a great advantage, in contrast to the older priests who had spent years in prison, that they told us clearly: 'Don't start anything with State Security, better let them take away your consent. That's always wrong.' What was I supposed to do at that moment? I answered him simply and cheekily: 'It´s better if you don't come again, your visit is always unpleasant.' Can you imagine that? And I said, 'You know, these children, my sister-in-law and her children are here, my nephews and nieces, and they have brought other friends, it's so noisy here, I don't even have calm to work with so many children here.' And he said, 'You have to stand it over the holidays.' Such a simple man he was. He hasn't come to the parish house since then. If anything came up, they called us to State Security offices."

“A man from State Security came to me. What they did was that they always wanted to catch you somehow. They started the conversation like this: ‘You like it here, right?’ We were lucky that at meetings of priests from the Focolare Movement we had priests who had been through years of investigations and prison. They clearly taught us what we should and should not do. State Security men do not know the things which you don’t tell them yourself. That’s all. Secondly, you always need to demonstrate to them that you do not cling to anything: You don’t depend on your parish or your priesthood. Otherwise they would have something to catch you upon and keep you in check. Later I also learnt this from one priest who served in Pilsen. He had been a high-ranking official in Pacem in terris before. I used to tell him: ‘You should apologize to people and explain to them why you had actually been in Pacem in terris.’ He said: ‘You know, I could not imagine that I would not be serving as a priest.’ That was precisely how they kept him in check and he suffered because of it, and it was terrible.”

"It happened that they (the Federal Ministry of Interior officials) asked me, 'What are you going to do when the petition 31 Points comes to you? It's already in Sokolov, so it will surely reach you soon.' I was saying to myslef: Thank you for telling me. I understood that there was no point denying it, that they were monitoring exactly where the petition was going. So I said, 'What am I going to do? I'll read it. And if I like it, I'll get people to sign it.' That´s what I did, anyway. That was the end, they didn't say anything more, they didn't reproach me for anything, and they left. The consequence for me was that I didn't become a bishop at that time, thank God. I was afraid of that, after all, there was communist pressure present at that time. Bishop Liška and Bishop Lebeda were ordained."

“Bishop Liška called me: ‘Could you come to me tomorrow?’ I was a bit shocked, I thought: ‘This does not look good.’ I went to him. He told me: ‘Sit down.’ I sat down. The bishop said: ‘The Holy Father wants to ordain you and František Lobkowicz as auxiliary bishops of Cardinal Tomášek here in Prague.’ I sprang up and asked: ‘What? Me? And why not Tomáš Halík, for instance, or Aleš Opatrný?’ He replied: ‘They have got still time, now it is your turn.’ I told him: ‘This is a great mistake. This cannot be possible – I cannot be a bishop. Can I say no? Do I have to accept it?’ Bishop Liška said: ‘When archbishop Colasuonna announced to me that I was to become a bishop, I asked him the very same question, too. I asked him whether I could say no and refuse it. He said: You can, but it is not done to the Holy Father.’”