"For those of us who lived through the hard times of communism in the 1950s, it was like a revelation to us. We very much experienced it as a breathing in with a certain freedom. We could work freely, we could work with youth, with children, with groups... We could go to different spiritual renewals. There was a scout in Holešov, I did a little bit for that too. We also started a school there, a youth choir, which then rehearsed a youth mass, which they then did in '69 or '70, and there were a lot of young people there. That was the fruit of that '68."
"The church secretary was always present at priestly meetings. At the festivals we went to, the church secretary had to authorize those. There were district church secretaries and regional church secretaries. If a priest was not registered with this regime, they made complications for him. Maybe they didn't allow him to have a confirmation so that the bishop would come. When we arrived somewhere, the church secretary was in the church, the church secretary sat with us at the parish banquet. Everywhere we were observed like that, watched over."
"It was during the Caribbean crisis. They took advantage of the fact that there was great political and military tension. So I was summoned to the military administration and there I was taken in by a member of the StB, and there I was persuaded to accept the cooperation, that they would facilitate my travel and that they would give me a good job when I was ordained, that they would take care of it. And I knew then what it was and what it meant to have a twisted conscience and to be internally divided. So I thought, whatever happens, I'm not going to do it. He gave me some more time to think about it, and then we met with the officer somewhere in the park, and that's where I told him that I really didn't feel up to it, that it didn't make me feel good in my conscience, and that I wasn't capable of doing it. And he accepted that and left."
Josef Šich was born on 30 November 1942 in Koválovice near Tištín. Both parents, Helena (née Gazdová) and Josef, came from Prostějov. Shortly before the communist putsch - in January 1948 - the family moved to Zlín (from 1949 Gottwaldov), where the father worked at Bata (after nationalization in 1949 Svit). After graduating from high school in 1960, Josef Šich entered the seminary at the Roman Catholic Cyril and Methodius Theological Faculty in Litoměřice. Because of the application itself, the family experienced political prosecution, and the father had to be repeatedly interrogated. During his studies, Josef faced pressure to cooperate with the StB. In June 1965, he received priestly ordination at the hands of the then bishop (later Cardinal) František Tomášek. From the 1970s he worked in Olomouc as a vicar of the cathedral, a clerk of the consistory and a master of ceremonies. He also took part in the ceremonies of the famous Velehrad pilgrimage in 1985. Before the Velvet Revolution, he signed a petition for religious freedom, the so-called Moravian Appeal, and participated in the canonisation of Agnes of Bohemia at the Vatican. After 1989, he met repeatedly with John Paul II, who in 1995 appointed him a Monsignor, a chaplain of His Holiness. In 1992, he became Chancellor of the Curia of the Archbishopric of Olomouc. From 1997 to 2010 he served as President of the Archdiocesan Charity of Olomouc, and from 2007 to 2008 as President of the Charity of the Czech Republic. In 2023, Josef Šich lived in Olomouc and continued to work with the Archbishopric there, serving as a confessor in the cathedral and devoting himself to personal pastoral care and his lifelong hobby - photography.
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