Diary of a Country Parson

Interview with a Czech priest, recipient of the Václav Benda Memorial Medal for Distinguished Development for the Restoration of Democracy

I am no intellectual, says P.  Jan Rybář. Perhaps that is why he tells about the bright and shady sides of life directly and without unnecessary considerations. The eighty-five-year-old Jesuit is one of the last witnesses to the dramatic events of the 20th century. He remembers the horrors of II. World War II, wild displacements, the onset of communist totalitarianism, imprisonment and permanent surveillance by the StB. But he also remembers the hopes raised by II. Vatican Council, and the return of freedom in 1989. And with all humility, he will not let the freedom and humour of the Gospel be taken away from him, but on the contrary, he will gladly share it with all his readers.