Come se dovessimo morire oggi. La vita, il sacerdozio e il martirio di don Josef Toufar
Since childhood, Josef Toufar had wanted to become a priest, and to serve God and men. A parish priest, in 1949, in a small village of Vysočina on the hill of Číhošt’, despite the fact the tentacles of communist power slowly begin to weave their way into society, the forty-six-year-old priest begins to renovate the parish. He fixes the surroundings of the church and the parsonage, he plants fruit trees, involves both believers and non-believers in the activity, communists and non-communists, he organizes conferences and dance classes, teaches in school and goes to Prague to ask for pensions for the elderly. On Sunday, December 11, 1949 the cross of the church moves during mass. Father Toufar is accused of having staged the “miracle” and is arrested by the Czechoslovak secret police. He dies on February 25, 1950 after being tortured for wanting to fully prove his loyalty to Christ and to the Catholic Church. Following the publication of the book “As if we had to die today”, the Czech Church has started the process of beatification.
Miloš Doležal,
Come se dovessimo morire oggi. La vita, il sacerdozio e il martirio di don Josef Toufar,
Itaca Libri: Castel Bolognese 2015,
208 pp.