Dialogue resumes from the testimony of Jan Hus

Dario Busolini

The Holy Father’s audience in the Vatican and the visit later to the Lateran University by the President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel, brought to an end the scientific sessions of the International conference on Jan Hus, organised in Rome by the Central Committee for the Jubilee and by the Czech Bishops’ Conference in collaboration with the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and the University of Prague. In his speech to those participating in the conference, Pope John Paul II expressed his “deep sadness” at the sentence to death at the stake, in 1415, of this Bohemian priest and reformer, united however in the hope that the important process of historical and theological re-reading of Hus (begun during his first visit to Prague) may guide the path of the history of the Czech people “towards the rediscovered unity of all Christians”. The Pope explained that “the truth may turn out to be uncomfortable when it asks us to abandon our rooted prejudices and stereotypes…however, the truth that makes us free from error is also the truth that makes us free to love… The significance of your work is that a figure like Jan Hus, which has been an important point of friction in the past, can now become a subject of dialogue, of debate and common study.  At a time when many are working to create a new type of unity in Europe, historical research like yours may help to inspire people to go beyond the too tight ethnical and national borders, towards new forms of genuine openness and solidarity. This will certainly help Europeans to understand that the Continent will be able to advance in a safe manner towards a new and stable unity, if it will manage to reconnect in new and creative ways with the Christian roots and with the specific identity that derived from it. It is therefore clear that your work is an important service not only for the historical figure of Jan Hus, but also, more in general, for Christians and society in general. This because, in the end, it is a service to the truth on man, a truth that the human family needs to recover, before any other thing, at the dawn of the third millennium of the Christian era”. This concept was also addressed by President Havel who, in his speech, emphasized the timeliness of the message of Hus: “the ardent, intrinsic attachment of Hus to the truth, to the faithful adherence of truth in the deepest harmony with the actions of everyday life continues to be, in spite of the transformations produced over the centuries and the partial philosophical and theological views, a permanent stimulus for the spiritual inheritance of our people. Today, rather, in the moment which we are experiencing at the start of the new millennium, it takes on special significance due to the general need for a profound transformation of our mentality and of our behaviour… Everything indicates that the great contribution of Jan Hus to the history of Europe is that of the principle of individual responsibility. The truth, for him, was not a simple part of information, freely transferable, but an attitude in life, a duty and a right. In this way, he saw the emergence of a new and crucial social quality, the one linked to every concrete and unique human being and to his responsibility anchored to the transcendent. That quality, that is, which should be recognised by the whole of modern civilization and on which our entire civilization should rest, unless the latter doesn’t want to end badly”. In recognition of the cultural and social value of the congress on Jan Hus, the Czech President handed the gold medal of the Karl Vi University of Prague to the President and Secretary of the Central Committee for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, Cardinal Roger Etchegaray and Monsignor Crescenzio Sepe. Responding to the greeting of Havel, Cardinal Etchegaray recalled his non-violent commitment as a playwright involved in politics for freedom and democracy: “Your fight for the defence of freedom and truth, the one of the heirs of Comenius and Masaryk, maintains a pressing timeliness all over the world. It takes on, in our eyes, an “ecumenical” value, because it integrates in a living unity all the dimensions of a humanity that draws its dignity and perpetuity from divine sources, that do not cease to give it substance and subsistence”. Commenting later on the development of the conference, the Cardinal underlined that “this represents nearly a “Charter 99” of shock and protest of the Christian faith in a society where man feels more excluded the more he is cast way by God. May all the disciples of the Gospel that Jan Hus preached in the Prague Chapel of Bethlehem provide testimony together that, according to thee words of Pope John Paul II, “in the meeting with Christ every man discovers the mystery of his own life… He is the true criteria to judge every project that tends to make the life of man more human”.