Vatican City - Pope John Paul said yesterday he regretted the Catholic Church's cruelty in burning the Czech religious reformer, Jan Hus, at the stake in 1415, saying the advent of the Holy Year was the right time to say sorry.
"Today, on the eve of the Great Jubilee, I feel the need to express deep regret for the cruel death inflicted on Jan Hus and for the consequent wound of conflict and division which was thus imposed on the minds and hearts of the Bohemian people," he told a symposium on the Bohemian preacher.