A public prosecutor in Prague has opened a case to clear the legal record of Cardinal Josef Beran, who was exiled by the Communist regime of what was then Czechoslovakia in 1965.
A survivor of the Dachau concentration camp during World War II, the future cardinal was named Archbishop of Prague in 1946. Because he refused to pledge his support for the post-war Communist government, he was harassed and arrested repeatedly. In 1965, when he traveled to Rome to accept a cardinal’s red hat from Pope Paul VI, the government refused to allow him back into the country. He died in exile in 1969.