The first dismissal
The first dismissal from employment
Dated November 24, 2009.
Judgment March 22, 2011: the
dismissal is void/null.
To this day, I still do not know why I was fired from my employment relationship. I can only speculate as to the reasons.
1/ I stepped out of the gray of Catholic women - pastoral assistants and began to be known and even respected in some circles.
2/ The fifth meeting in Velehrad for healthcare pastoral workers, which I organized under the auspices of the Department of Oncology of the First Faculty of Medicine and General Teaching Hospital, Charles University, was of great interest from all over the country, from Catholics and Protestants.
3/ I took the liberty of professionally debating the idea of Dr. Eva Kalvínská and my brother-in-law Msgr. Aleš Opatrný. I recommended the Western European and American models of healthcare chaplaincy. Kalvínská and Opatrný wanted spiritual assistants, which they later renamed crisis assistants. Dr. Kalvínská thus promoted a novelty that has no parallel in the world. She justified her ideas with the Czech atheist society. For this, she received the support of Msgr. Opatrný. She was not interested in humanists, who then showed no interest in serving in hospitals. Dr. Kalvínská's effort was the introduction of certain currents of alternative medicine and esotericism into the Czech healthcare system under the guise of spiritual assistants.
I reacted to the situation in several articles. Someone then suggested to
me that it was a fundamental fatal mistake. The articles allegedly so angered my brother-in-law that he tried to get rid of me and instructed that I be given first dismissal.
I do not regret that I wrote the articles in which I defended cancer patients from
alternative medicine. These methods can cause serious damage.
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Articles can
be found in the archive of the Journal of Czech Physicians; summaries
are in English:
5/2008 Opatrná M.:
Lékařská etika a etikoterapie
https://www.prolekare.cz/casopisy/casopis-lekaru-ceskych/2008-5/lekarska-etika-a-etikoterapie-325
6/2008 Opatrná M.:
Lékařská etika a etikoterapie II
https://www.prolekare.cz/casopisy/casopis-lekaru-ceskych/2008-6/lekarska-etika-a-etikoterapie-ii-340
6/2009 Kalvínská E.:
Od etikoterapie k moderní psychoterapii
https://www.prolekare.cz/casopisy/casopis-lekaru-ceskych/2009-6-3/od-etikoterapie-k-moderni-psychoterapii-5792
9/2009 Opatrná M.: K
diskuzi o etikoterapii
https://www.prolekare.cz/casopisy/casopis-lekaru-ceskych/2009-9-1/k-diskuzi-o-etikoterapii-15444
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The official reason for the first dismissal was a fictitious, serious
violation of work discipline.
I went to Velehrad on Thursday afternoon. Msgr. Opatrný knew about the Velehrad meeting and he sent one person there. However, just to be sure, I sent him an email as I have done in previous years.
I prepared everything regarding the meeting: I invited a priest who led
recollection (a one-day spiritual reflection) who happened to be the former
press spokesman of the Czech Bishops' Conference and the president of the
Archdiocesan Charity Prague.
I arranged accommodation, meals, and lecturers,
and I also gave lectures myself.
I was not at the Department of Oncology for 4 hours on Friday, that
is true. It was the same in previous years and no one objected. In addition, I
had countless overtime hours, which no one cared about for years.
The dismissal was given in a special period: the Prague archbishops were changing. The new archbishop Duka refused to solve the matter and advised me to file a lawsuit.
During the court hearings, the archbishopric did not prove any violation of work duties. Seeing they most likely would fail, the attorney of the archbishopric came to the court hearing with the claim that there is a Basic Document of the Roman Catholic Church dated September 28, 2006, which includes persons performing Church activities (e.g., catechists, pastoral assistants) as clergy.
And so, the Basic Document of the Roman Catholic Church appears for the first time in court cases.
The clergy have a so-called service relationship, which does not enjoy the protection of civil courts. I, a laic woman with a signed employment contract, was suddenly supposed to be in a service relationship. Being in a service relationship, the archbishopric would get rid of me immediately and without trial.
The judge did not accept this trick and stated that the employment contract had been properly negotiated and that my activity was that of a lay person, not an ordained person. The Prague archbishopric lost for the first time.
The whole fictional mendacious case was a long-lasting shock for me.
Moreover, It was beyond me to understand that a woman could be a member of the clergy
based on a "Basic Document".
And, it didn't even occur to me that "the whole thing" has more complicated, serious connotations.