The Czech state is seeking to return more land
and less cash to churches that were dispossessed under the communist
regime as the government moves to close a long-running dispute over
restitution.
Under an outline deal being put together by the Ministry of Culture,
59 percent of the settlement with the churches would be in the form of
returned property worth at least Kč 75 billion and as much as Kč 77
billion if some land now used for military training is thrown in.
The
remainder of the estimated Kč 135 billion worth of confiscated church
property will be paid in cash over 30 years at the most.
A previous
offer counted on repayments dragging out over 60 years.
The latest proposal marks a major increase
in the amount of returned property that the Czech state wants to return
compared with a 2008 offer that counted on confiscated farmland,
forests and lakes making up only 39 percent of the settlement.
That deal
created a public uproar in the largely nonreligious country and was
rejected by the lower house of Parliament at its first reading.
Most of the returned property would come from state-run forestry
company Lesy České republiky and from the state-asset manager, the
National Property Fund (NMF).
“The offer that was handed over today to the representatives of the
church and religious groups should not be perceived as anything other
than an attempt to solve a long-lasting and persistent problem,” the
Culture Ministry said in a statement.
The Catholic Church was by far the biggest loser when the communist
regime seized power in February 1948 and moved to victimize the
institution, close down monasteries and expropriate property.
The
Catholic Church and Vatican were portrayed by state propaganda at the
start of the Cold
War as part of a capitalist conspiracy seeking to
stamp out the regime.
The Communist regime also at one stage in the
1950s tried to create its own substitute church that would obey its
wishes using the services of an excommunicated priest, Josef Plojhar.
The communists also sought to draw on historical Czech antagonism to
the church, which was one of the greatest beneficiaries when the
Catholic Habsburgs defeated Bohemian noblemen at the Battle of White
Mountain on the edge of Prague in 1620.
The defeat is regarded as the
end of an independent Bohemia and start of submission to imperial rule
from Vienna.
Many non-Catholic nobles who fought with the defeated army
were forced to flee and their lands handed over to Catholics and the
Catholic Church in the wake of the battle.
The Czech Bishops’ Conference (ČBK) made no initial reaction to the
latest government offer.
Some parts of the church, such as monastic
orders, had complained about the settlement offer in 2008 for the large
cash component, saying that they would rather have their original land
returned.