Tag Duka

Sexualized violence is a dark stain on the face of Czech society, affecting the lives of thousands of women every year. New research presented by proFem and MindBridge Consulting presents alarming data on the economic impact and consequences that ripple through our society.
The research found that more than half of women have experienced some form of sexualized violence, while one in five women have experienced rape.

Although we often discuss the physical consequences such as injuries, research reveals extensive psychological, social and health implications. Victims face heightened sensitivity, lowered self-esteem and even chronic illnesses such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. It is worrying to note that only 32% of the women who needed medical help actually sought it, which clearly shows the barriers to accessing the necessary services that exist.

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note: Originally this statement was intended only for the Czech audience, but we believe that Mr Duka is such a public figure that we should publish this statement here as well.

We are deeply concerned about the unceasing efforts of former Archbishop of Prague Dominik Duka to influence public and political discourse in our country.

Mr. Duka has long been guilty of numerous excesses in his public appearances and actions, and his statements and attitudes promote intolerance, divide society, and constitute interference by the Church in the affairs of a democratic state.

Mr Duka has repeatedly shown that he clings to dogmas and hierarchies of power instead of the true Christian values of love, compassion and forgiveness. His rigid positions on abortion or homosexuality go against the tide of real moral progress for humanity.

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Czech and long-time pro-Russian President Miloš Zeman has performed an unexpected and somewhat desperate somersault of opinion, calling his friend Putin a lunatic, hoisting the Ukrainian flag at Prague Castle, and planning to award Ukrainian President Zelensky the Czech Republic’s highest state honour, the Order of the White Lion.
A number of leading Czech officials, including the presidents of both chambers of Parliament, the president of the Constitutional Court, and at least three university rectors, have announced that they will not attend the event of the awarding of state honours because of Zeman’s past warm relations with Vladimir Putin’s Russia and his frequent attempts to discredit Czech intelligence services warning of Russia’s hostile actions in the country.

Has our “favourite” Cardinal Dominik Duka woken up together with the President?
Let us recall how, at the end of 2018, he responded to the question of whether or not he supported the arrival of fifty orphans – refugees from Syria – to the Czech Republic:
“The Archbishop of Olomouc and the Charity of the Czech Republic are dealing with these matters. (…) I am unable to intervene in this debate on the merits.”
“Yes, generally speaking, we all know that it is necessary to help those in need, but on the other hand, we also know that this is to some extent a political struggle these days. For that reason, I cannot answer.”

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Czech Cardinal Dominic Duka has responded to the latest developments in the case of the accusations against Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who has been accused of neglecting to investigate four cases of sexual harassment of minors by the clergy while he was Archbishop of Munich.
Such a reaction is not surprising, since Duka himself was the subject of a criminal complaint for abetting the perpetrators of sexual violence in the Dominican Order, which Duka led at the time.
He called his defence of the Pope “Munich Betrayal for the Second Time”, which for some unfathomable reason equates the Munich Agreement with a cover-up of sexual abuse. Duka wants to call the Archbishop of Munich, his curia and the President of the German Bishops’ Conference “to account for the defamation and tarnishing of the reputation of Pope Benedict XVI”. Such a call for accountability at a time when Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, in his letter, expresses his regret for the pain of victims of sexual abuse in the Church is downright chutzpah from a man with Duke’s past.

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Recently there have been articles in the media about the fact that in the “atheistic” Czech Republic there are fewer believers who profess to belong to specific churches. This is based on the results of the 2021 census.

While in 1991 more than four and a half million people identified themselves as believers, twenty years later not even half of them were believers. The number of Czech citizens who claim to belong to a particular church is slightly lower than in the last census eleven years ago, but the number of those who identify themselves as believers but do not consider themselves part of a religious organization has increased by about a quarter of a million. Last year, over 1.3 million people subscribed to a faith, but of those 960,000 did not subscribe to any church.

Sociologist of religion Zdeněk R. Nešpor quite rightly points out that the methodology of the census has been different each time.
“We are comparing numbers that look the same but are not the same. The old censuses, and even the censuses from the 1990s, are different from those from last year.”

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