Prague, Jan 13 (CTK) – Czech President Milos Zeman invited Pope Francis to Czech Republic in June on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Lidice village obliteration by Nazis in a letter he sent on Tuesday and the Presidential Office released on its website on Friday.
In his letter to the Pope, Zeman described the Lidice tragedy and its symbolic significance for the countries that are afflicted by a war conflict now.
Lidice, central Bohemia, was razed to the ground by the Nazis in retaliation for the killing of Deputy Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia Reinhard Heydrich by Czechoslovak paratroopers in May 1942. Its male inhabitants were shot dead and women and most children taken to concentration camps. Some children were taken to Germany for re-education.
Zeman reminded of the fate of Lidice priest Josef Stemberka who decided to stay with his parishioners in death. The Nazis executed him together with the other Lidice men.
Zeman wrote that it would be an immense honour for Czech citizens if Pope Francis paid a state visit to the Czech Republic on the occasion of the anniversary of the Lidice obliteration at the beginning of June, 2017.
In October 2012, Joachim Gauck visited the Lidice Memorial as the first German president in history, which Zeman called a gesture of reconciliation in his letter to Pope Francis.
The Czech Republic has no enemies, but only partners among its neighbours, he added.
He supposed that Lidice could become a place reminding of the power of forgiveness, reconciliation and hope.
Zeman met Pope Francis in April 2015. After the reception in the Vatican, Zeman said the Pope had accepted the invitation to Velehrad, south Moravia, in near future. A traditional pilgrimage to pay tribute to the Slavic missionaries Cyril and Methodius is annually held there in July.
Zeman said the Pope would pay the visit before Presidential Office Protocol section head Jindrich Forejt assumed the post of ambassador to the Vatican.
However, Forejt resigned from his post in December, citing personal and health reasons. At the same time, a compromising video depicting Forejt emerged. It is not clear whether the Vatican would give consent to Forejt in the ambassador’s post under these circumstances.
Zeman promised that he would support the fulfilment of “Forejt’s dream.”
Zeman reiterated his invitation to the Pope last September through Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, before the opening of a debate of the 71st Regular Session of the U.N. General Assembly, and in December when he sent a telegram congratulating the Pope on his 80th birthday.
The last Pope to visit the Czech Republic was Francis’s predecessor, Benedict XVI, who arrived there in September 2009 when he celebrated an open-air mass in Brno and paid homage to St Wenceslas, Czech patron saint, in Stara Boleslav, central Bohemia, where he was killed in 935.
Previously, Pope John Paul II visited the Czech Republic in 1997.
