Catholic Outlook Magazine | Lent & Easter | 2024 Issue

Monsignor Tomáš Halík in conversation with Jesuit priest
Fr Frank Brennan at St Patrick’s Cathedral Hall, Parramatta.
Image: Diocese of Parramatta
‘UNDERGROUND’
PRIEST
visits Down Under
Czech theologian, philosopher and “underground
priest” Tomáš Halík visited Australia in February
as a guest of the Diocese of Parramatta, for a
series of public lectures and talks on the topic
“Help my unbelief: searching for God in a
secular age”.
A renowned public intellectual, Monsignor Halík
converted to Catholicism as an adult and was
secretly ordained a priest in 1978 during the
communist rule of then-Czechoslovakia. He is
known for being a leading voice against Soviet
communism in the 1980s and was co-responsible
for the revival of the Czech Catholic Church after
the fall of communism. In the years since, he
established an ‘academic parish’ in Prague and
baptised more than 3000 adults into the faith.
He has lectured widely around the world and
written many books, the most recent of which is
The Afternoon of Christianity: the courage to change.
In 2014, he was awarded the prestigious
Templeton Prize, which is presented to someone
who harnesses “the power of the sciences to
explore the deepest questions of the universe
and humankind’s place and purpose within it”.
Monsignor Halík spoke to hundreds of people
at St Patrick’s Cathedral Hall, Parramatta, on
Monday, 12 February, as part of the Bishop Vincent
Presents series of public lectures, at which he
spoke about the need for dialogue with those on
the margins, the “seekers” and so-called nonbelievers,
and need for the Church to broaden
the concept of Christianity. The conversation was
moderated by leading academic and priest, Fr
Frank Brennan SJ AO.
Go to YouTube to watch
the full conversation
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