The first four decades of Tomáš Halík’s life coincided with the duration of Communist Czechoslovakia. As a clandestine Catholic priest active in dissident intellectual as well as Church circles, he witnessed—and helped shape—developments which contributed to the Velvet Revolution, the peaceful wave of protest that brought down the Communist regime in December 1989. He liaised, among others, with the dissident writer Václav Havel—who would become the first president of post-Communist Czechoslovakia—and Pope John Paul II.
Now in his early seventies, Monsignor Professor Halík continues to minister at the baroque Church of St. Salvator [the Holy ...
