The divorces and planned re-marriages (to their respective mistresses) of premier Mirek Topolánek and ex-premier Jiří Paroubek have been in and out of the news for quite a few months now; below is one report among many from Paroubek's saga. Overall the Czechs' attitude towards the sex lives of their politicians is quite "European," that is, much more forgiving than the Americans'. There is the occasional columnist who thinks otherwise, though. I'm undecided, myself.

In this installment, we find the Hussite church warning Paroubek that he will need to repent before remarrying, even though his original marriage was a civil wedding. It's interesting that Paroubek wants a marriage in that church (even though his fiancee is Catholic!), as it's quite a minority church. Most religious Czechs, like most other religious Central and South Europeans, are Catholic. But I guess it's not that surprising, since Catholicism is -- again I guess -- quite strictly against divorce, which would explain Paroubek's statement in the article that a Catholic marriage is "out of the question."


The article is sadly a bit confusing in its very most interesting part, the one that seems to be intended to explain "Why the Hussites?". The translation I get for that part of the text is:

"Those who profess the Hussite faith may have a wedding at City Hall or* a Hussite church. In another denomination, they would only be able to have the wedding if one of the them professed the faith in question."

* (Actually nebo právě; the translations possible for právě are diverse enough that I'm not brave enough to translate it (or silently give it a null translation) without knowing what the heck is going on.)

Huh.

I doubt the explanation "The Catholic church would disallow it outright, the Hussite church will only make it difficult instead" is too far off, in any case.

Lidové noviny: Paroubek se musí před svatbou kát

Předseda ČSSD Jiří Paroubek si chce svoji přítelkyni Petru Kováčovou vzít v husitském kostele. Aby sňatek mohl proběhnout, bude se ale Paroubek muset kát, protože se před pár měsíci rozvedl. I když první sňatek nebyl církevní, církvi vadí.