Don Bosco’s Sons Who Became Cardinals
Bishop Stephen Trochta
(1905-1974)
Stephen Trochta was born in Francova Lhota, in
East Moravia, on March 26, 1905, the first of three children of Frantisek and
Anna Trochta, two peasants with a simple and straightforward faith. At the age
of 8, he lost his father and shortly afterward felt the priestly vocation arise
within him, so much that he entered the minor seminary of his diocese. Her
mother, however, who worked alone to provide for her children, fell ill with
tuberculosis; to care for her and his younger siblings, Stephen left the
seminary. During that time he came across an article on the life and works of
Don Bosco and put his trust entirely in Mary Help of Christians. Once his
mother recovered, he chose to become a Salesian.
In autumn 1923, just 18 years of age, he made
a journey on his own to Turin. There he completed his philosophical studies,
followed by his theological studies, carried out in Rome, and in 1932, he was
ordained a priest. He immediately returned home and became one of the founders
of Salesian work there: teaching philosophy, pedagogy, and religion in Frystak;
founding a social work in the industrial city of Ostrava; opening a “youth
house” in Prague. In addition, he was assigned to provide spiritual assistance
to Catholic Scouts.
A sought-after speaker, an expert on youth
issues and social issues, he became a prominent personality in the Catholic
life of his country. So at the outbreak of World War II, his name ended up on
the list of the 100 most influential people in Prague to be eliminated to
prevent possible opposition. He was deported to the Terezin concentration camp,
then to Dachau, and finally to Mauthausen. In the Nazi registers his name was marked
with the abbreviation “R U,” meaning “return unwanted,” and was thus assigned
to the heaviest jobs, assigned to groups destined to be eliminated. In
Mauthausen, seeing that he was exhausted, a Nazi shot him point-blank “to free
him from a long agony.” But Fr. Trochta did not die. He regained consciousness
while he was already on a wagon of corpses sent to the crematorium. He managed
to let himself slip off and ended up being rescued by a camp doctor.
At the end of the war, his homeland was in
ruins and was also invaded by the Red Army. On September 29, 1947, Pius XII
appointed him Bishop of Litomerice, the most devastated diocese in Bohemia. The
seminary was destroyed, 70% of the parishes without priests. Bishop Trochta set
to work, following the motto chosen at his episcopal consecration: Actio,
Sacrificium, Caritas (Action, Sacrifice, Love).
However, the Czechoslovakian Communist regime
effectively barred him from episcopal activity and for 3 years he was held
under house arrest at his headquarters, until, in 1953, he was arrested on
charges of espionage and “anti-state activity” and sentenced to 20 years in
prison.
In 1960 he was pardoned but forced to find a
manual job: he worked as a bricklayer and maintenance worker for lifts and
toilets. Even in this state, he did not forget his mission as a bishop and did
everything he could for his priests and the diocese.
On August 2, 1968, after 18 years of absence,
he was able to resume the government of his diocese and on September 1, 1968 –
in a Czechoslovakia that had just seen the Prague Spring repressed in blood –
he ascended the pulpit in his cathedral to say, “Many of you I am seeing for
the first time, although I have been your bishop for 21 years. I’ve had
terrible years. I saw the worst of human wickedness. But Jesus Christ is our
Redeemer, today and forever.”
In 1969, Pope Paul VI named him cardinal but
kept his appointment secret, “in pectore.” Only on March 5, 1973, could he
publish his elevation to the red hat, which Bishop Trochta finally received on
the following April 12. He lived as a cardinal for less than a year; then,
consumed by the many crosses he had carried and offered up with patience and
love. He died on April 6, 1974.
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