Newspaper Article

Cardinal Tomasek Is Dead; Cautious Prague Prelate, 93

STEINFELS, PETER

1992

Overview

Four days later, after the Communist Party shuffled its leadership in an effort to retain power, Cardinal [Tomasek] spoke at the country's first televised Mass, celebrating the canonization of St. Agnes of Bohemia weeks earlier in Rome. \"In this historic moment in the fight for truth and justice,\" he told 250,000 worshipers, \"I and the Catholic Church are on the side of the people.\" Hopes for change were crushed by the Soviet-led invasion in August 1968, and no successor as Archbishop of Prague was named when Cardinal [Beran] died in 1969 because the Vatican feared immediate persecution. Not until 1977 did Pope Paul VI announce that in May 1976 he had secretly elevated Bishop Tomasek to cardinal, and not until 1978 was the new cardinal named Archbishop of Prague and Primate of Czechoslovakia. State Diminished Stature Cardinal Tomasek was the church's oldest active archbishop when he retired on March 27, 1991. In June he was hospitalized after several weeks of illness. When his condition deteriorated last month, Reuters reported today, Cardinal Tomasek said he did not wish to be hospitalized again.

• Publisher: New York Times Company
• Subject: BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION / DEATHS / POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT / STEINFELS, PETER / TOMASEK, FRANTISEK (CARDINAL)