Pope’s condolence message for Havel’s funeral

(December 23, 2011) Pope Benedict XVI has praised the courage of late former Czech president Vaclav Havel for defending human rights during the cold war. The 75-year old dissident playwright died on Sunday, 22 years after leading the bloodless "Velvet Revolution" that ended Communist rule over Czechoslovakia in December 1989. Pope Benedict’s condolence message addressed to current Czech president Václav Klaus was made public on Friday for Havel’s state funeral at St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague Castle. “I join all those who have gathered in Saint Vitus' Cathedral for the solemn funeral rite in commending the soul of the deceased to the infinite mercy of our heavenly Father,” the Pope wrote. He remembered how Havel courageously defended human rights at a time when they were systematically denied to the people of his country. While paying tribute to the late president’s visionary leadership in forging a new democratic polity after the fall of the previous regime, the Pontiff said, “I give thanks to God for the freedom that the people of the Czech Republic now enjoy.” With the fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia in 1989, Havel became the country’s first democratically elected president. Soon after the peaceful breakup of the country into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993, he was elected president of the Czech Republic. He became president for a second five-year term in 1998, and finally stepped down in 2003.