Sunday, May 20, 2012

Polish Catholics looking to convert atheists among Czech football fans

Catholics from the Polish town Wroclaw in which Czech footballers will play during the forthcoming football EURO 2012 want to convert Czech atheist fans to the Catholic faith.

Priest Stanislav Jozwiak, from the Wroclaw diocese, and the church-goers from the town want to unfold the banner saying Jesus Also Sacrificed His Life for Czechs in the zone for fans, Pravo.

Besides, they want to influence them intensively by conversations on faith, Jozwiak said.

"The idea is rather risky. I cannot rule out that it will backfire and it will only strengthen the Czechs' stereotype image of Poles as Catholic fanatics," Polish priest Zbigniew Czendlik, who has been working in the town of Lanskroun, east Bohemia, for almost 20 years, has told the paper.

"Czechs can link the idea with medieval crusades," Czendlik said, alluding to the crusades against the Hussite reform religious movement in Bohemia in the early 15th century. 

"Besides, Czech fans will come to Poland to see football, not to be subjected to religious influences," Czendlik said.

"The idea that this type of campaigns will push Czechs closer to Poles is erroneous and its architects only prove that they do not know our neighbours at all," he added.

Czendlik said a mass for Czech church-goers would be sufficient.

"The Wroclaw Town Hall is also against the banners, billboards and campaigning in the zone for fans," spokeswoman Julia Wach has told the paper, adding that UEFA that organises the championship does not allow such events.

However, Polish Catholics are undeterred and have announced that they will look for other ways in which to address foreign fans, Pravo writes.

Polish Catholic church regularly uses sports events to propagate faith. 

Hundreds of priests and volunteers are preparing various events entitled evangelisation missions for fans from inside and outside the country, it adds.

Czechs are widely considered the most atheist nation in Europe, while their neighbours Poles are fervent Catholics.