What was already heard on twitter

Tweet July 16, 2023

In 2009, I received my first termination for a serious violation of work duties. It never occurred to me that I could be punished for extra work. But given the circumstances, I had no choice but to file a lawsuit to invalidate the termination.
The judgment of the District Court for Prague 1 in 2011 determined that the notice was invalid. The Archbishopric of Prague did not prove any violation of work duties.

Already in August 2011, a second termination followed—this time for redundancy. The second termination was not sent into my own hands, so it was determined invalid by the judgment for recognition in June 2012.

The third termination immediately followed, again for redundancy. The court case in this case led to a constitutional complaint on my part. 

Tweet July 18, 2023

The Prague archbishopric did not prove my redundancy because they started simultaneously to employ another woman at another hospital.

And so, the court once again stated that even the third dismissal was invalid. 

This time, the Prague archbishopric appealed to the Municipal Court in Prague. They claimed: She performed clerical work (the work of clergy); hence, she is a cleric. She did not have an employment relationship but a service relationship, which does not fall under the jurisdiction of the civil courts. We just made a mistake in the terminology.

The Municipal Court in Prague confirmed that:  "The defendant (meaning the archbishopric) used terms arising from labor law during the duration of the employment relationship. However, this is not a classic employment relationship, but a clerical relationship".

My appeal to the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic followed. The Supreme Court had the same opinion as the Municipal Court.

So, I filed a constitutional complaint. You can read the findings of the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic here:
https://www.usoud.cz/fileadmin/user_upload/Tiskova_mluvci/Publikovane_nalezy/2017/III._US_3591_16_an.pdf  

Tweet July 20, 2023

Before I focus on further developments after the publication of the Constitutional Court´s findings, I will briefly dwell on the issue of women in the Catholic Church.

Even in the Czech secularised society, it is common knowledge that a Catholic woman cannot be ordained and become a deacon or even a priest. The Roman Catholic Church has a legislative document, the Code of Canon Law (CIC). It is a set of internal laws and norms binding on all Latin rite Catholics.

The CIC divides Christians into clergy and laity: some of the Christians are sacred servants whom the law calls clergy; the others are called lay people, that is, Christians who have not received the sacrament of ordination.

The CIC states that a person receiving the diaconate becomes a clergyman (cleric) and that only a baptized man can receive the sacrament of ordination.  

Tweet July 21, 2023

The Roman Pontifical states that deacon ordination results in inclusion into the status of clerics.

Lumen Gentium (Vatican II document)  defines the laity as follows: The word layman refers here to all Christian believers outside the members of the clerical and religious state.

Similarly, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the word layman refers to all Christian believers outside the clerical and religious state. And further: Only a baptized man validly receives the sacrament of ordination.

The Czech law on churches speaks clearly of clergy and laity, too.
According to this law, churches may teach both clergy and lay workers.
According to this law, churches appoint and dismiss their ministers/clerics.
However, this does not apply to laity; they are to be employed according to the applicable laws of the Czech Republic. 

Tweet July 22, 2023

In 2018, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Ladaria, confirmed the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that women cannot be ordained.
https://www.vaticannews./cs/vatikan/news/2018-05/arcibiskup-ladaria-ne-ke-knezskemu-sveceni-zen-je-definitivni.html 

The logic of the matter is this: if a woman cannot receive ordination according to the current teaching of the Catholic Church, she cannot be a cleric. Nevertheless, the Archbishopric of Prague managed to convince the courts of the opposite and destroy my life for many years. And not only that, as I will describe later.

Concerning the position of women in the Catholic Church, I would like to mention that there has been a long-standing effort to change the situation of Catholic women. See, for example, the very good scholarly website https://womenpriests.org/

Tweet July 23, 2023

The Czech way to make a woman a cleric without being ordained:
According to the Law on Churches,  in connection with registration (Act No. 3/2002 Coll., § 10.), churches had to draw up a so-called Basic document  

The Basic document must contain the method of appointing and dismissing clerics and a list of the designations of clerics used in the church.

In the Basic Document of the Roman Catholic Church, Part X/2, it is stated: The Codex does not know the word cleric in the strict sense of the word.
This statement is in stark contradiction to the Codex! See tweet July 20, 2023.

Under the Clergy section in the Basic Document (X/2), there are listed "persons performing spiritual services": pastoral assistants, lectors, acolytes, catechists... That means laity, women!
https://cbk.cirkev.cz/dokumenty/zakladni-dokument-cirkve-rimskokatolicke_238

Tweet July 24, 2023

At the end of the text of the Basic Document, the Code of Canon Law and the Catechism are listed as appendices, clearly stating who is a cleric in the Roman Catholic Church and who is not. This, however, did not prevent the authors of the text of the Basic Document from claiming that the laity are clerics. At the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, probably no one addressed the truthfulness of the classification of laity as clergy.

And so, the claim that the Code does not know the word cleric in the strict sense of the word remains there to this day.

The Prague Archbishopric, however,  has improved on the nonsense about lay people being clergy by claiming, "The plaintiff, despite her high education, does not accept that a lay person acting on behalf of an institution is in an employment relationship; acting on behalf of a bishop is acting in a ministerial/service relationship. (...) The plaintiff tries purposefully to convince the court that the difference between a cleric and a layperson lies only, and precisely, in ordination. That is not true." (From the Statement of the Archbishopric to the Municipal Court of 25.5.2018)