Southern Nebraska Register
One hundred people from the Superior area attended the second annual “Priest Appreciation Dinner” held at the Superior Country Club April 12.
The event, held to honor the priests who serve the area, was hosted by area Knights of Columbus councils. Nine priests were in attendance.
Father Bernard Kimminau, pastor of St. Patrick Parish in McCook, was the guest speaker. He shared the story of the life of Father John Prachar (1918-1991), a priest from Czechoslovakia who served the Catholic Diocese of Lincoln.
Father Prachar began his studies for the priesthood in his native country in 1939, but in his fourth year of theology, Nazis closed the seminary and sent the young men to a forced labor camp. There, Prachar worked 12 hours a day, until the inmates were liberated May 9, 1945.
The young man was ordained in 1946, and was serving as a pastor when Czechoslovakia fell to the Communist Party. After being warned that his arrest was imminent, Father Prachar fled the country, on Holy Thursday of 1949. He served in a refugee camp in West Germany until he was able to come to the Diocese of Lincoln, where he served parishes in Bee, Brainard, David City, Greenwood, Indianola, Lawrence, Lincoln, Nelson and Superior.
In the summer of 1991, Father Prachar visited his homeland to celebrate the 45th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood. But before the celebration occurred, he was killed by an unknown assailant(s) rumored to have had ties to the communist regime. Father Prachar died June 30, 1991.
