Requiem mass to be celebrated for Cardinal Tomáš Špidlík

A requiem mass will be held in Prague’s St. Vitus’s Cathedral on Monday for Czech-born cardinal Tomáš Špidlík. The death on Friday of the theologian, philosopher and writer, at the age of 90 in Rome was announced over the weekend. The mass was announced by the Czech Bishops’ Conference, the Catholic Church’s top decision making body in the country on Sunday. Cardinal Špidlík was known as one of the foremost experts on the eastern church. He was appointed a cardinal in 2003 by Pope John Paul II, who counted Špidlík as one of his friends. Cardinal Špidlík was born near Brno in 1919 and later studied Czech and Latin at the city’s Masaryk University. He left Czechoslovakia after the communists took power in 1948, first to study at Maastricht University and then left for the Vatican. He worked for Vatican Radio but later pursued his academic studies.