He emigrated to Rome with five theologians
Stáhnout obrázek
Josef Stojaspal was born on 30 September 1933 to a peasant family in the village of Dolní Němčí near Uherské Hradiště. After attending the municipal school, he entered the burgher school in the neighbouring town of Hluk. In 1945, he entered the Jesuit boarding school in Velehrad, where he studied at the church gymnasium until 1948. After its closure, he commuted for three years to the gymnasium in Uherské Hradiště. He witnessed the displacement of the Jesuit monastery in Velehrad in April 1950, and at the same time he perceived the increasingly tense atmosphere in his native village, from where dozens of people emigrated to the West. He and four of his classmates decided to leave Czechoslovakia to study theology in Rome. They managed to cross the border to Austria near Znojmo. Josef Stojaspal, Jaroslav Němec, Václav Umlauf, Jaroslav Kunčík and his brother Jindřich headed for Vienna, where they found refuge in a Jesuit monastery, from where the American army helped them to reach Salzburg. There, Jindřich Kunčík decided to return to Czechoslovakia to help other people cross the border. However, he was arrested, convicted and imprisoned in the Jáchymov camps. Others from the refugee camp left for Rome. Three studied theology and were ordained there, while the Dominican Václav Umlauf completed his studies in England and then worked for many years as a missionary in the Caribbean. Jaroslav Němec ended up in Italy, among others in prominent ecclesiastical positions: the Vatican archives, etc. Jindřich Kunčík joined a parish in northern Italy, but later left the priesthood. After five years of study at the Lateran University in Rome, Josef Stojaspal was ordained a priest on 17 March 1957. Since he spoke Latin, Russian, Italian and German, he was sent as chaplain to South Tyrol and spent a year among Russian (Orthodox) emigrants. He then studied for five years in Rome at the Eastern Institute Russicum, where he received his doctorate in theology in 1960. Subsequently, he worked in Salzburg in spiritual administration among Russian emigrants, but soon left for West Germany. From 1963 he was a priest in a parish of Italian immigrants in the town of Gelsenkirchen in the Ruhr area. He was also in contact with other Czech priests working in Germany, such as Abbot Anastáz Opasek. He returned to Czechoslovakia for the first time in 1990, when he visited his native village of Dolní Němčí in southern Moravia. He continued to work in Gelsenkirchen. He did not permanently return home to Dolní Němčí until 1998, when he retired. He occasionally helped with the ministry in his home village. He died on February 13, 2019 in Dolní Němčí.
