Night of Churches: When Sacred Spaces Become Arenas of Indifferentism
EWTN News reports that hundreds of Christian churches and religious sites across Central Europe will open their doors on May 29 for the “Night of Churches,” an annual ecumenical initiative drawing nearly 1 million visitors in the Czech Republic and Austria combined. The event, now in its 18th year in the Czech Republic, invites “believers and nonbelievers alike” to explore churches, chapels, and synagogues through concerts, exhibitions, talks, guided tours, and prayer. This year’s theme in the Czech Republic and Slovakia is “Courage.” Archbishop Stanislav Přibyl of Prague acknowledged that “sometimes it takes courage to even cross the threshold of a church,” while Archbishop Josef Grünwidl of Vienna called it “a challenge for all people to further explore their own religious and spiritual tradition” and “not be afraid to open up to the unknown.” The article also recounts a 2023 gathering of former parishioners above the buried village of Radovesice, destroyed during the communist era for mining, where they commemorated the deceased and debated “our relationship and responsibility to the place in which we live.” The concept originated in Frankfurt in 1995 and has spread to eight countries. This event, far from being a genuine apostolate, is a textbook exercise in the very indifferentism and religious relativism that the pre-conciliar Magisterium condemned as a mortal poison to the soul.







