Monsignor František Radkovský

* 1939

  • "At the beginning of March, I remember, sometime on the tenth of March, on Sunday, I was washing up and wiping the dishes after lunch, it was probably a Sunday, and Bishop Liška called me: 'Please, could you come to Prague tomorrow?' I was caught off-guard, because I said to myself: 'I know this [situation] already, Vlk told us that it had been like this.' So I arrive there and Bishop Liška says: 'Sit down. The Holy Father wants to appoint you and František Lobkowicz as auxiliary bishops in Prague.' I was dumbfounded. I said: 'What? It's a mistake, isn't it? I should be a bishop? That's just not possible. Why not Tomáš Halík or Aleš Opatrný?' Bishop Liška said to me: 'They have still time, now it's your turn.' I said: 'Can I say no?' He said: 'That's what I asked the Monsignor from Rome who came to tell me that I should be Auxiliary Bishop of Prague. He told me at the time that I could, but that the Holy Father was not supposed to be told that.' Then he said to me: 'Well, think it over, tomorrow I need a letter from you, which I will send to Rome, whether you agree or not.' I set off all scared and went to see Karel Pilík, my spiritual advisor, at the parish house in Karlín. In Cyril and Methodius Square. I said, 'Karel, what a mess! I am to be appointed bishop.'He laughed and said: 'It's not a mess, it's God's will!' And I said, 'God's will? It didn´t occur to me it could be God's will!' Karel said, 'We were trying to choose honestly, and if you've been chosen, it's God's will.' I couldn´t speak Italian at that time, and he could, because he had studied in Rome. We agreed that he would help me write the letter to Rome in Italian, that I would accept it. It was agreed that it would be announced on March 17, the feast of Blessed John Sarkander."

  • "In the summer after that, I had my sister-in-law visiting with her children, two boys and a girl, and other friends. And I arranged with the local children who went to church that I would prepare them for their first Holy Communion. We had arranged for them to come in the afternoon. I also had an engaged couple in the parish house, so I was speaking to them. And now I saw a State Security member, the one in charge of church, walking past the windows. I had already known him, he was also present at the investigation. I ran to my sister-in-law and said: A State Security member is coming, tell him I can't come now, I'm preparing the engaged couple. Tell him to come back in half an hour, we still have to get the children out of the house so he wouldn't see them here.' But she went to open the door and a bunch of kids followed her. She told the State Security man to come in half an hour, that I had an engaged couple there. But the children started shouting, 'What, in half an hour, then he´s having us!' That was a touchy situation! But fortunately he was such an ordinary guy, he wasn't so bad or so clever. He came in, I served him coffee, plum brandy, as was the custom. He said: 'There are rumours in the backstage in Pilsen that your colleague's consent [state consent to be a priest, trans.] will be taken away.' Then I said: 'Well, that's a mistake, I need him.' Well, with that I scored my own goal. He said, 'Well, I can´t decide it.' Of course he also could decide it! 'I don't decide, but I can plead with them not to take it from him, and I'd come in here like today sometimes.' And I thought, 'You idiot, you stepped in it. That's how you got a State Security member to come to your parish and you should cooperate. No way!' We had a great advantage, in contrast to the older priests who had spent years in prison, that they told us clearly: 'Don't start anything with State Security, better let them take away your consent. That's always wrong.' What was I supposed to do at that moment? I answered him simply and cheekily: 'It´s better if you don't come again, your visit is always unpleasant.' Can you imagine that? And I said, 'You know, these children, my sister-in-law and her children are here, my nephews and nieces, and they have brought other friends, it's so noisy here, I don't even have calm to work with so many children here.' And he said, 'You have to stand it over the holidays.' Such a simple man he was. He hasn't come to the parish house since then. If anything came up, they called us to State Security offices."

  • "It happened that they (the Federal Ministry of Interior officials) asked me, 'What are you going to do when the petition 31 Points comes to you? It's already in Sokolov, so it will surely reach you soon.' I was saying to myslef: Thank you for telling me. I understood that there was no point denying it, that they were monitoring exactly where the petition was going. So I said, 'What am I going to do? I'll read it. And if I like it, I'll get people to sign it.' That´s what I did, anyway. That was the end, they didn't say anything more, they didn't reproach me for anything, and they left. The consequence for me was that I didn't become a bishop at that time, thank God. I was afraid of that, after all, there was communist pressure present at that time. Bishop Liška and Bishop Lebeda were ordained."

  • “Bishop Liška called me: ‘Could you come to me tomorrow?’ I was a bit shocked, I thought: ‘This does not look good.’ I went to him. He told me: ‘Sit down.’ I sat down. The bishop said: ‘The Holy Father wants to ordain you and František Lobkowicz as auxiliary bishops of Cardinal Tomášek here in Prague.’ I sprang up and asked: ‘What? Me? And why not Tomáš Halík, for instance, or Aleš Opatrný?’ He replied: ‘They have got still time, now it is your turn.’ I told him: ‘This is a great mistake. This cannot be possible – I cannot be a bishop. Can I say no? Do I have to accept it?’ Bishop Liška said: ‘When archbishop Colasuonna announced to me that I was to become a bishop, I asked him the very same question, too. I asked him whether I could say no and refuse it. He said: You can, but it is not done to the Holy Father.’”

  • “A man from State Security came to me. What they did was that they always wanted to catch you somehow. They started the conversation like this: ‘You like it here, right?’ We were lucky that at meetings of priests from the Focolare Movement we had priests who had been through years of investigations and prison. They clearly taught us what we should and should not do. State Security men do not know the things which you don’t tell them yourself. That’s all. Secondly, you always need to demonstrate to them that you do not cling to anything: You don’t depend on your parish or your priesthood. Otherwise they would have something to catch you upon and keep you in check. Later I also learnt this from one priest who served in Pilsen. He had been a high-ranking official in Pacem in terris before. I used to tell him: ‘You should apologize to people and explain to them why you had actually been in Pacem in terris.’ He said: ‘You know, I could not imagine that I would not be serving as a priest.’ That was precisely how they kept him in check and he suffered because of it, and it was terrible.”

  • Full recordings
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    Plzeň, 04.02.2015

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    duration: 01:30:04
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
  • 2

    Karlovy Vary, 22.03.2022

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    duration: 02:25:52
    media recorded in project Stories of the 20th Century TV
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To go where God wants me to be

František Radkovský, portrait from his youth
František Radkovský, portrait from his youth
photo: Witness´s archive

František Radkovský was born on 3 October 1939 in Třešt’ near Jihlava. His father ran carpenter´s trade. The witness graduated from an eleven-year secondary school in Telč and the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Charles University in Prague. He specialized in mathematical statistics. After graduation and completing military service, he worked as a statistician at the State Research Institute for Research of Automation in Glassmaking Industry. He then went over to the Pedagogical Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. In 1966-1970 he graduated from the Cyril and Methodius Theological Faculty of Prague, which resided in Litoměřice. In 1970, he was ordained a priest by Prague Bishop František Tomášek. For two years, the witness worked as a chaplain in Mariánské Lázně. In 1972 he became a parish priest in Františkovy Lázně, where he remained until 1990. At that time he joined the community of Catholic priests and laity - the so-called Focolare Movement. He was repeatedly investigated and monitored by the State Security Service, which registered him as an enemy person. In March 1990, Pope John Paul II appointed him titular bishop of Aggar and auxiliary bishop of Prague. On April 7, 1990, he received his episcopal ordination from the hands of Cardinal František Tomášek. In 1990-1993 he served as Secretary General of the Bishops’ Conference of the Czechoslovak Federal Republic and later of the Czech Bishops’ Conference. On 31 May 1993, Pope John Paul II appointed him the first bishop of the new diocese of Plzeň. In 2014, when he was 75 years old, he offered his abdication to the Holy Father in accordance with customs, and remained in service until 2016. In 2022, he was living in Karlovy Vary as Bishop Emeritus of Pilsen, and in the parish of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, he was occasionally assisting at services and working for local charities.