Gabon in Prague
On Sunday, June 22, 2025, the Second Sunday after Pentecost, the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Gabon, Major General of the National Gendarmerie, Ms. Brigitte Onkanowa, attended Holy Mass in the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Charlemagne the Emperor in Prague, commonly known to Praguers as Karlov. Since 2016, the church has been a diocesan rectory for celebrations in the traditional Roman rite. The minister was in our Republic on a business trip and expressly wanted to attend the traditional Latin “Tridentine” Mass on Sunday. It was clear that this was her personal preference, as the Catholic Church in her country attracts the faithful mainly because of its widespread celebration of traditional Masses. It turns out that Africans do not necessarily need liturgical dances to affirm their cultural identity, which are almost imposed on them by Europeans as something supposedly authentic that they should exhibit for us.
Diplomatic protocol is often relentless and detailed down to the minute; however, it was clear that Sunday Mass took precedence over everything else for the Minister. Being obviously a traditional practicing Catholic, she was familiar with all the liturgical postures, which are even more demanding in the “old” Mass and require a certain amount of stamina. Not only did she approach Holy Communion, but so did some members of her entourage. We would hardly see such a thing here. It is rather embarrassing to see politicians who are invited to attend services on certain official occasions where it is not appropriate not to come, but at the same time do not know how to behave in church.
Above all, the Minister's visit was a lesson in true Catholicism. Mrs. Onkanowa was moved by the opportunity to experience in Mass exactly what she knows in her country in equatorial Africa, many thousands of kilometers away from the Czech Republic. She felt at home in the church in Prague, just as she did in the Gabonese capital of Libreville. She was experiencing what for centuries had been taken for granted by Catholics. From New Zealand to Alaska, Catholics were at home in “their” Mass. Not even the Second Vatican Council wanted to deprive them of this Catholicism, and explicitly requested what soon began to be denied to the faithful: "the use of the Latin language should be preserved; ... care should be taken that the faithful can also recite or sing together in Latin those parts of the Order of Mass which are their responsibility" (cf. Sacrosanctum concilium 36 and 54); however, in the traditional Mass, Latin is not heard so strongly, nor is it necessary to know it so well. In fact, most of the prayers are recited by the priest in the silence that dominates the whole sublime and mystical atmosphere of the Mass, preferably together with Gregorian chant, which is mysteriously enchanting and which, according to the Council itself, should have “first place” among all types of music in the Church (cf. Sacrosanctum concilium 116).
The fact that Karlov Church is located in our Czech capital attracts the interest of Catholic tourists and visitors from all over the world, many of whom prefer the traditional liturgy. The worldwide spread and growing popularity of this particular rite is evidenced not only by the increasing number of these faithful coming from abroad, but also by their origin from every continent of the globe. It is as if here, in the church founded in 1351 by our Father of the Nation, Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia, a Pentecostal miracle were taking place again, naturally in a form adapted to the present day: “We Germans, Austrians, and French, inhabitants of the Visegrád countries, Italians, Scandinavians, Brazilians, Indonesians, Hong Kongers, Taiwanese, Americans, and Canadians, sub-Saharan Africans, Britons, former Protestants and charismatics, Australians and Lebanese Maronites, even Trinidadians and Tobagonians: let us all experience the great works of God together!” Even Orthodox residents or visitors feel at home in our Catholic Mass, precisely because it is in the traditional rite.
The Pentecost miracle of the sending of the Holy Spirit consisted in understanding the foreign languages in which the great works of God, the magnalia Dei, were proclaimed. And that is what we are talking about. In the early days of the Church, there was an urgent need for their proclamation, for which national languages are undoubtedly an indispensable means. Today, however, there is an equally urgent need to truly believe in these works of God. Those who have been fortunate enough to receive the full Catholic teaching on the mystery of the Eucharist, even if in their mother tongue, have the help of the traditional Latin liturgy, in which they can truly live this teaching intimately. It is literally immersed in the mystery of God, in which the individuality of the priest and the need to understand every word gradually disappear. In short, this Catholic knows that the magnalia Dei truly take place on the altar: Christ shares his last supper with his disciples, suffers on the cross, and truly rises from the dead. Here, words are not needed, but devotional adoration. For Catholic Christians of all nations, the Latin structure of the Mass, in which the catholicity and unity of the universal Church are literally palpable, has been for many centuries, and remains demonstrably so today, the ideal.
It can be argued, however, that the Church in this country, especially in the capital, also establishes ecclesiastical administrations for members of certain nations that have a greater representation of Catholic faithful. For them, Mass is celebrated in Slovak, Polish, Hungarian, German, English, French, Italian, Vietnamese, and other languages. It must be admitted, however, that such ecclesiastical accommodation becomes more of a religious basis for weekly meetings of friends. While there is no lack of interpersonal and social significance in these cases, the purity of intention of those foreigners who want to encounter Christ in the first place is all the more to be appreciated.
The Church Fathers had already noted the substantial connection between the account in the Acts of the Apostles of the sending of the Holy Spirit and the Old Testament account of the Babylonian confusion of languages. The Babylonian attempt at deification led to the division of humanity, which the Holy Spirit in turn reunited at Pentecost. Today, we very often witness a new confusion of languages in our Church, especially when it is necessary to address in worship the presence of believers from multiple nations who were unwisely cut off from Latin in the Catholic Church several decades ago. For example, try celebrating Mass in a gathering of Catholics from the Visegrád countries: Czechs, Slovaks, Poles: that's still fine. But what about Hungarians? How useful it would be to know the Our Father in Latin: Pater noster qui es in caelis...
It is already sufficiently clear from the testimonies of Pope Leo XIV that he personally considers Latin to be part of the life of the Church. It is precisely at a time of advanced globalisation that the Church could have at its disposal a practical tool that it has unnecessarily deprived itself of with its previous ‘revolutionary’ indiscretion; at least in a modest form, the fruits of this globalisation, which leads to the spiritual union of peoples united in the Eucharistic mystery of Christ, can be experienced in the Prague church of Karlov.
Rev. Stanislav Přibyl
[Source, in Italian, and images: Bohemia Romana]
