
Pastoral Care of Youth in the Czech Republic — Legal Aspects
The communist regime in Czechoslovakia belonged among the most repressive in the former Soviet sphere. It made efforts of ideological indoctrination of youth and used various means in order to isolate young people from the religious life. Solely after the changes in 1989 it is possible to organize structures of many-sided care of youth within the Churches. In the framework of the Catholic Church there belongs a great deal of merits to the Salesian Congregation which operated with youth in the secret structures already in the times of totalitarianism when the male Church orders were abolished. The Czech Bishop Conference established its Section for Youth, also the Church movements as Focolare or Charismatic Renewal take part on the care of young Christians. The care of youth exploits the possibilities offered by the canon law. A special attention is turned to the problem of quality of the Church music for youth. Also the Catholic Traditionalists, Greek Catholics, Orthodox Church and the other Christian Churches employ the religious freedom and establish various organizations for young believers according to the civil law and their inner church prescriptions.
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