Tomáš Špidlík

Tomáš Josef Špidlík, S.J. (17 December 1919 – 16 April 2010) was a Czech Catholic prelate and theologian. Pope John Paul II made him a cardinal in 2003. He was a member of the Jesuits.

Biography Špidlík was born in 1919 in Boskovice, then Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic. In 1938, he entered the Department of Philosophy at the Masaryk University in Brno, in what is now the Czech Republic. In the following year, he entered the Jesuit novitiate and after many interruptions in his education due to World War II, he was ordained a priest of the Society of Jesus on 22 August 1949 in Maastricht. in 1949. A year later, in Florence, he finished his formation period as a Jesuit.

In 1951, Špidlík was called to Rome by Vatican Radio. The programs broadcast to the countries behind the Iron Curtain were a precious aid to a freedom which was in danger of being slowly but inexorably suffocated. From this work with Vatican Radio sprang a special mission that would always accompany him and that made him known in lands despite their communist domination. Among others, he met with Alexander Dubček, the former first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and Václav Havel, who became president of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic after the fall of the communist regime. Špidlík's Sunday homilies in Czech have been translated and published in various languages including Polish, Romanian and Italian.

He also lectured at the Pontifical Oriental Institute and the Pontifical Gregorian University.

In 2005 Špidlík delivered the meditation on the first day of the papal conclave just before the first ballot was taken. Because of age he was not eligible to participate in the voting.

He died in Rome on 16 April 2010.

Works La Sophiologie de Saint Basile (1961) Questions monastiques en Orient (1999) L'arte dui purificare il cuore (1999) The Art of Purifying the Heart (Convivium, 2010) The Spirituality of the Christian East: A Systematic Handbook (Cistercian Studies) Language: English