Antonín Mandl – svědek diskusí mezi katolíky ve druhé polovině 60. let 20. století

The general character of the memory of the contemporary witnesses and the fact that nearly no Christian samizdat of the 1960s has been preserved do not allow to offer a closer look to the topics discussed by the priests released from prison with their friends. We can only offer it through the witness of one of them, Antonín Mandl (1917–1972). His work from 1965 to 1967 is only a voice of an individual, but we can suppose that it echoes a broader debate, in which the experience of the earlier years has been confronted both with the contemporary form of the Czechoslovak society ruled by the Communist totalitarian regime and with the results of the Vatican Council II. The paper focuses on Mandl’s answer to the following three questions: In the relation to the Communism, is it proper to choose opposition, or collaboration? How should the priesthood in the contemporary society look like? What are the major axioms of Christian life, pastoral work and evangelisation?