Editor’s note: “Today, the Czech Republic is one of the most secular countries in Europe, with nearly three-quarters of adults (72%) describing their religion as atheist, agnostic or ‘nothing in particular.’” This striking finding comes from a wide-ranging survey published by the Pew Research Center in 2017. Almost all remaining Czech adults—or 21 percent—identify as Catholic, yet this figure is down from 44 percent in 1991. [See “Religious Belief and National Belonging in Central and Eastern Europe,” Pew Research Center, 10 May 2017, https://www.pewforum.org/2017/05/10/religious-belief-and-national-belonging-in-central-and-eastern-europe/.]

Is Czech society really so secularized? Why has the number of self-identified Catholics halved in the absence of Communist restrictions? This issue of the East-West Church Report features diverse interviews with three active Czech Catholics. All came of age after the Communist regime in then-Czechoslovakia was swept away by the Velvet Revolution of 1989 (when the eldest was a student and the youngest a toddler). All joined the Church in their teens and have close experience of Catholic education in their homeland.