Dominik Duka


Dominik Jaroslav Duka is a Czech cardinal, who is the 36th Archbishop of Prague and a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He previously served as Bishop of Hradec Králové.

Early years

Duka was born in 1943 in Hradec Králové in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. His father was an army officer who fought for the allied forces in World War II, based at RAF Cosford, who was later imprisoned in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s. Duka graduated from Tyl Grammar School in Hradec Králové in 1960 and worked in a factory and as an apprentice locksmith before entering military service from 1962 to 1964.

Priestly ministry

On 6 January 1969 he made temporary profession in the Dominican Order and on 22 June 1970 he was ordained a priest by Cardinal Štěpán Trochta, Bishop of Litoměřice. For five years he worked in parishes of the Archdiocese of Prague and, on 7 January 1972, he made his solemn profession in the Dominican Order.
In 1975, the Communist government of Czechoslovakia revoked Duka's authorization to work as a priest. From then until the regime collapsed in 1989, Duka worked as a designer at the Škoda factory in Plzeň. In the meantime, he worked in secret in the Order and was elected the province's Vicar Provincial and served from 1975 until 1987. From 1976 to 1981, he taught theology to seminarians at the Theological Faculty of Litoměřice. In 1979, he obtained a licentiate in theology at the Theological Faculty of St. John the Baptist in Warsaw, Poland.
As a result of his activities with the Dominican Order and involvement in the publication of unauthorised samizdat literature, he was imprisoned in Bory Prison in Plzeň from 1981-82, where his fellow prisoners included future Czech President Vaclav Havel. While in prison, Duka conducted a clandestine mass for other prisoners disguised as a chess club. From 1986 to 1998 he was Prior Provincial of the Dominicans in Bohemia and Moravia. From 1990–98, he was a lecturer in the Faculty of Theology at Palacký University in Olomouc, teaching Introduction to Sacred Scripture and biblical anthropology.
Duka was elected president of the Conference of Major Superiors of the Czech Republic and served from 1989 to 1992. In 1992, he became the vice president of the Union of European Conferences of Major Superiors, serving until 1996.

Episcopacy

On 6 June 1998 Duka was appointed bishop of Hradec Králové and received episcopal consecration on 26 September 1998. On 13 February 2010, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him Archbishop of Prague. Duka was formally installed in Prague's St. Vitus Cathedral. On his appointment, Duka said that:
"The Church must engage in a dialogue with society and must seek reconciliation with it. Twenty years ago, we were euphoric about freedom; today we live in an economic and financial crisis, and also to a certain extent in a crisis of values. So the tasks are going to be a little more difficult. But thanks to everything that’s been done, it will not be a journey into the unknown."

One of Duka's chief concerns was the long-standing issue of the restitution of church property, which had been confiscated by the communist regime, and which was either never fully returned or for which the church was never compensated. The Czech Republic is one of the last countries in Europe not to have ratified a treaty with the Holy See. After previous attempts at an agreement had failed – most notably in 2008 under Cardinal Vlk – the Czech government in mid-January 2012 agreed to a compensation plan, under which the country's seventeen churches, including Catholic and Protestant, would get 56% of their former property now held by the state – estimated at 75 billion koruna — and 59 billion koruna in financial compensation paid to them over the next thirty years. The state will also gradually stop covering their expenses over the next seventeen years.
On 23 December 2011, Duka delivered the liturgy at the funeral of Vaclav Havel.

Cardinalate

On 18 February 2012, Duka was made Cardinal-Priest of Santi Marcellino e Pietro. On 21 April 2012, he was appointed to the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life and Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
Duka was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2013 papal conclave that selected Pope Francis.
Duka contributed to a book Eleven Cardinals Speak on Marriage and the Family which urged fellow church leaders to maintain the church's rules regarding marriage and strengthen Catholic education about marriage and family life. The book was released before the world Synod of Bishops on the family in October 2015.
In May 2016, Duka claimed that the pope could not fully understand the refugee crisis because he is not from Europe. Duka has frequently spoken against Muslim immigration into Europe, and has said that Muslims can only be considered a "safe presence" if they make up less than five percent of the population.
Duka has had several clashes with a Templeton winner, Tomáš Halík. In August 2015, Duka banned a conference by Jeannine Gramick, an American nun specialising in pastoral care for LGBT people, as well as the screening of a Polish film about a homosexual priest. In a statement setting out his objections, Duka said: "Most participants are not believers and have no intention of addressing their relationship with the Church. Since I do not think people with this sexual orientation are discriminated against in our country, it is not right for us to advocate things which are in direct conflict with the Catholic Church’s teachings."
In 2016, Halík criticized Duka for allegedly dissociating himself from the pope and for being too close to the Czech president Miloš Zeman. They disagree on Islam and its "violent tendencies". Halík also criticized Cardinal Duka in October 2016, for accepting the highest state award from President Milos Zeman, telling Právo: "On the October 28 national holiday, when Milos Zeman was bestowing a medal on Dominik Duka for his support for Miloš Zeman, I remembered the words a former Pope, who commented on the death of Cardinal Richelieu — He said if God exists, the cardinal will probably have a lot to explain to him; if God does not exist, the cardinal did his job perfectly. I would be ashamed to accept an award from Milos Zeman. However, Cardinal Duka seems to have got on a train he will never have the courage to leave. This makes me sorry."
In February 2018, a group of Czech Catholic laymen wrote a letter to Pope Francis, expressing concern about Duka's closeness to Czech politicians including Vaclav Klaus, Milos Zeman and Tomio Okamura, and urging him not to extend Duka's mandate for the Archbishopric when Duka turned 75 in April 2018.

Awards and honours