It's enough to try the patience of a saint. Religious leaders have reacted to the government's latest proposal to deal with the thorny issue of church property seized by the former communist regime by putting forth a counterproposal.
The result is that, after years of deadlocked dispute, the stalemate looks set to continue.
One spokesman for Catholic bishops believes the government will never return former church assets and will never agree to an alternative of paying financial compensation.
In the latest round of bargaining, religious authorities have come up with a suggestion that the state pay churches 1 billion Kc ($43.5 million) annually for the next 50 years.
"The main idea is to prepare churches for a complete separation from the state."
Jitka Krausova, Ecumenical Council of Churches
In return, churches would give up their claims for restitution of vast tracts of land and property seized after the communists came to power in 1948, and would also renounce the state salaries currently given to clergy.
Catholic bishops supported the idea at a meeting in Prague Jan. 25-26. At the same time they rejected a different solution proposed earlier that month by Culture Minister Pavel Dostal, according to Lawrence Cada, a spokesman for the Catholic Bishops' Conference, a body that groups the country's Catholic leaders.
"It's the latest episode in a long standoff," Cada said. "All kinds of people in the government don't want to give the church property back.
"But they [the church] are never going to get any money, nothing. I'm speaking as an American who lives in this country now for seven years and who has been watching this. This is my private opinion. This is just going to keep dragging on."
Asked if the new idea from churches would be acceptable to the government, Jana Repova, director of the Culture Ministry department responsible for dealing with religious affairs, said she had not yet received a formal proposal.
She, added, however, that her ministry has "very good relations with an overwhelming majority" of churches and religious societies.
Burned hands
The financial stakes in the dispute are high. Religious authorities estimate that more than 100,000 pieces of unreturned church property including buildings, land and forests would fetch 80-100 billion Kc if sold on the open market today.
Meanwhile, churches last year received 1.2 billion Kc in total from the state, of which 606 million Kc went to pay salaries of clergy, according to Cada.
CHURCH VS. STATE
• The stakes: Dispute centers on some 130,000 real estate holdings including buildings, land and forests, worth 80 billion-100 billion Kc
• History: The property was seized from the Catholic Church by the communist regime that came to power in 1948
• Church proposal: The state should pay churches 1 billion Kc annually for 50 years. In return, churches would give up property claims and renounce state salaries for priests
One measure in Dostal's proposal late last month entailed churches submitting a list of the tens of thousands of parcels of real estate they want back, with the Culture Ministry to decide whether it agreed each item should be returned, Cada said.
"The church rejects that proposal because it feels as though its hands were burned the last time it tried to do it that way," Cada continued. "There would be huge amounts of money that would have to be paid in legal fees to be settling those things one after another."
The Roman Catholic Church is by far the country's largest religious group, but others including Protestants and the Orthodox Church are also involved in the Ecumenical Council of Churches, which is setting up a commission to negotiate the restitution issue with the government.
"If we see the [church] property is worth 100 billion Kc, then 1 percent a year for a certain period of time does not seem like that much," said Jitka Krausova, a spokeswoman for the council. She added that the proposal is subject to further negotiations.
"The main idea is to prepare churches for a complete separation from the state," Krausova continued.
Many Catholics are in favor of ending the formal relationship between church and state in this country, if this is done in a way that guarantees financial autonomy for the former.
But such an arrangement is still a long way off as negotiations continue over property.
"Maybe somewhere somebody is going to emerge who is going to become a compromise-maker and who will know how to get all these people to come together and find something that both sides accept," Cada said. "If so, I have no idea how that could happen or who would be able to bring such a thing about."