Welcome to the website that provides information about servant of God Jan Bula, his beatification proceedings and about two other priests who were illegally executed in connection with the “Babice trial”. There are a few localities in the Czech Republic that bear the name of Babice. The Babice that were brought to public notice in the second half of the 20th century were, and are until now, a tiny village at the southeast edge of the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands. It was just here where the threefold murder happened on 2nd July 1951. In spite of its tragic nature, this murder was just an episode in the subsequent actions that were accompanied by suffering, violence and further murders. The totalitarian Communist regime tried to use this terrorist act to eliminate and discredit the groups against whom it led the so-called “class struggle”. In the southwest Moravia it was aimed above all at the peasants, priests and the Catholic Church in general.
On 12th July 1951 already commenced a trial in front of the state court in Jihlava which was completed after two days by passing seven death sentences, two life sentences and five more custodial sentences of 20 to 25 years. Manipulated news about this monumental process spread through radio and press across the whole Czechoslovakia. The additional trials connected with the “Babice trial” formed an atmosphere of fear directly in the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands. All of these “Babice trials” led to sentencing of dozens of people, passing of total sentences up to 100 years long and to 11 death sentences.
The priests Jan Bula, Václav Drbola and František Pařil belonged among the eleven executed. By these three judicial murders was definitely proved that the Communist regime does not object to execution of innocent priests.
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R. D. Václav Drbola (1912–1951), administrator of the parish Babice
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R. D. František Pařil (1911–1951), parish priest in Horní Újezd |
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1) the abbreviation R. D. means the Latin reverendus dominus – Reverend Lord, it is used to designate a catholic priest
