Rastislav is a catholic priest, born in Slovakia. His first journalistic experience was during his high-school studies. He edited and published a local Catholic youth magazine in his home village of Letanovce, north-eastern Slovakia. Since 1996, he has been a member of the Salesians of Don Bosco, a catholic religious order, dedicated to the education of young people, also through the social communication. In the period 1994-2010, with some pauses, he worked in the Salesian Publishing House Don Bosco in Bratislava, capital city of the Slovak Republic.
In 1998, he was one of three young Catholic journalists who founded Network Slovakia, The Fellowship of Catholic journalists, a non-government organization and professional association, focused on a reciprocal support of young journalists. He led the organization for four years.Rastislav completed his Theology master studies at the University of Commenius in Bratislava in June 2004 and he was ordained a priest. In 2005 he became a delegate for the Social Communications Department of the Slovak Province of Salesians of Don Bosco. In 2010, his Provincial decided to send him to Rome to study at the School of Church Communications at the University of the Holy Cross. In August 2011, he was a volunteer for the Communication department of World Youth Day, in Madrid, Spain.
Rastislav is very thankful for the opportunity to be part of MDN and he hopes this experience will enlarge his journalistic skills, as well as improve his knowledge of life in the United States.
Posted 05/13/2013:
A Saint dwells on the third floor of the Capitol rotunda. Among twenty-five Famous Missourians whose busts are housed there, one belongs to Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne, a Catholic nun and teacher who founded first free school west of Mississippi. Originally from France, she landed near News Orleans 195 years ago, on May 29, 1818.
Later that year, on September 8, the Academy of the Sacred Heart in St. Charles was opened. Rose Philippine Duchesne was at the age of 49 and her new religious house was in a log cabin. Born in France in 1769, she witnessed in 1792 the forced closing of her Convent in Grenoble, during the French Revolution, after that she joined the Society of the Sacred Heart in 1804. For many years she longed to serve in the New World.
The Catholic nun and teacher was in her middle age, when the permission of her Superior came, in 1817. So, the next 34 years she spent in what today is Missouri and Kansas. Running the school in St. Charles was very hard. After one year she moved it to Florissant. There, the new religious vocation started to come, too. The City House school in St. Louis was founded by her in 1827. At the age of 72 she went to minister to the Potawatomi Indians in Kansas. Her lifelong dream was fulfilled. Facing serious difficulties with Potawatomi language, she dedicated a lot of time to take care of the sick and to pray, gaining from Indians the name Quahkahkanumad - “Woman Who Prays Always.” She spent her last ten years back in St. Charles, where she died on November 18, 1852, at age 83.
Pope John Paul II proclaimed her saint on July 3, 1988. Her bust was presented at the Missouri State Capitol on November 17, 2006, by Catherine Hanaway, the first woman hold the position of the Missouri Speaker of the House of Representatives.
“I wanted someone who was a first,” Hanaway said. She added that Philippine, who came to Missouri as a missionary at the age of 49, is an inspiration for people who are “getting older and still want to accomplish something. Philippine gave us a very important model for what to do when times are difficult. She often felt alone and isolated and what did she do? She turned to prayer. It is a great example for all of us in the hardest moments,” Hanaway told Heart, a Journal of the Society of the Sacred Heart in 2006.
Pope Benedict had resigned and a new Pope had to come. But why might it be interesting at the Capitol? You know, there are quite a lot of people among the Representatives and Senators at Missouri Capitol, who are Christians. And some of them are Catholics. And the policies any Pope faces, at least in past century, has to do also with social issues. Being a politician with Christian mindset one is confronted with what the Pope teaches. And one can even has some ideas about what are the challenges the new Pope should address. And if the new one would be an American... What are the opinions?\
The task became clear.
I found some background information about politicians’ religion in their biographies on house’s and senate’s web pages. Let me point out for you one curiosity I came across: There are especially the young politicians having no problem to mention in their short bios what church they belong to. Is it only about the lack of professional experience, which the bios of older members have?
I had pretty long list of possible interviews. But the list of the appointments I was able to arrange was short. Person to person way is always the most efficient. In one case I had to send my questions only by email. I received no answers. By representatives and senators with more life experience in their background I found bigger expectations about new Pope. It seemed to me like - the more Popes they have seen in their life, more expectations they have; more tangible.
Together with my first personal contacts with the representatives and senators I have once again got the sense of what could be the combinations of politicians and their faith like: mature, courageous, open-minded, and also humble.