Since we remember, in the planet there is simply a image of a Catholic Pole, as if these terms were immanently related. However, for at least a twelve years – it seems that specified a turning point was the death of St John Paul II – Poland is convinced of the progressive secularization of society. Against the background of Western Europe it may not be significant, but crucial for Polish conditions, especially after the fall of the Polish People's Republic of Poland. A good chance to verify this hypothesis is late issued by the Catholic Information Agency (KAI) study Church in Poland 2023, this time in cooperation with the Roman Dmowski and Ignacy Jan Paderewski Institute of National thought Heritage (IDMN).
The study consists of 22 chapters covering a wide scope of influence of the Church on Poles. From typical statistical chapters on spiritual statistics, priestly vocations (including spiritual ones) to descriptions of ecclesiastical works – missions, charitable actions or the influence of sacral monuments on the material heritage of the Republic. The consequence of this cooperation is chapters devoted to Polish martyrs in the 20th century, the past of the Church's conflict with supporters of folk power, or the characterization of the concordat, i.e. the agreement governing the relation of the Republic with the Holy See. In this article, however, we will focus on spiritual statistics, for it shows real tendencies in our nation in fresh years.
Laication? That's the real truth.
The increasingly emerging information about subsequent sexual scandals in the Polish clergy must force reflection: how will all this affect the religiousness of Poles? Does this affect the general attitude toward the Church? Do we separate our religion from our opinion on the priestly condition, or do we consider this together?
When the author of this text attended the junior advanced school for lessons in cognition about society, we learned that in Poland we have about 96% of professed believers. Today, little than 80% of Poles are defined in this way. This means a very large drop – by just over 20% in just 18 years. However, let them not confuse those who consider 80% a good coin, inactive a advanced percent of specified people compared to Western Europe. In this group, only 9% are defined as profoundly believing.
The situation among young Poles, i.e. between the ages of 18-24, is even little favourable. Young Poles declare themselves believing at the level of 69% and as profoundly believing only 4%. This consequence gives way to more than 12% of young Poles defining themselves as full atheists. Thus young atheists surpass 3 times profoundly believing young Poles. If we look at all the age groups in general, the profoundly believing Poles (let us remind – 9%) are almost twice as many as atheists (5%). Comparing this with fresh investigation by CBOS – we are dealing with a permanent decline in the declaration of religion with the increase in atheistic self-determination. Dominicantes28.3% of Catholics attend the Mass all Sunday, and communicates, i.e. people receiving regular Holy Communion – they are only 12.9% of Catholics.
Of course, no 1 is amazed that the younger the Poles, the more the number of people who do not practice increases. So it is worth considering what this means. The study finds a partial answer to this question. Youth as idealists anticipate simple answers, although not necessarily requiring them to go beyond utilitarianism. On “own reason”, i.e. individual reflections, 21.4% of Poles are asked about the causes of dislike towards the Church. Against this background, 9.3%, interestingly enough, points to the most mediatic phenomenon, namely the bad conduct of priests, so it refers to a peculiar example. Equally interesting it seems that only 0.1% of young people indicate the influence of their peers on leaving the Church. While not wanting to depreciate the reasonable investigation of fact by young Poles, it is impossible not to get the impression that young people in the conventional way for youth do not want to admit that they can be influenced by others and that can find their attitude. 18.8% of Polish youth who are negative at Roman Catholicism emphasizes discouragement to the Church as an institution. 1 can presume that behind this is the conventional charge of not stopping Catholic truths of religion to alleged today. usually there is simply a sphere of sexuality, i.e. premarital sex, contraception, attitude to drugs or another truths of religion or principles from the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church. All of this is bound up with a simple and typical youth world-seeking aversion to sacrifices in the face of pleasance and experience that hedonism gives.
Certainly, complex translations of matters related to the harming of minors by priests, spiritual or nuns hit the idealistic request for simple answers and the first deficiency of consent to human harm. Young people have an unmistakable sense of black or white characters. And they require the same from priests and another professions of public trust. Meanwhile, adulthood is more complex, which is hard for a young man. The request for the integration of good and bad molecules, which each of us has in itself, is hard for frequently zero-one young Poles. Hence specified large expectations towards priests, even among those religiously uninvolved.
And not only young people can see the calls of the bishop of Sosnowiec to pray for priests who are having hard times. It is worth remembering that these “heavy moments” were connected with the affair in which you invited a stripper to the rectory in Dąbrowa Górnicza, and later refused to let the paramedics aid you erstwhile he fainted for unexplained reasons. alternatively of relegating from the priestly state and full cooperating with the police and the prosecutor's office, we are being transferred to another parishes or to work in curia. This gives dozens of fresh lines to production scenarios showing ecclesiastical pathologies increasing like mushrooms after rain. Each of these productions enjoys the attention of Poles, which only shows how at the time it is to look at priests' hands.
During the protests at first glance there was a large number of young Poles who, for apparent biological reasons, felt the most affected by the verdict of the Constitutional Tribunal. Publicistic terms of “carriers” and “julek” were popularized at the time, i.e. young girls who were full of fresh left-wing phrases, not being able to justify them. It seems that these "jules" present represent the majority of younger people who declare themselves atheists.
According to research, 75% of Polish Catholics believe that they cannot or do not want to engage in parish life. Especially in large cities, there is simply a large-scale phenomenon called churching, i.e. choosing the Holy Mass in the church according to preferences, e.g. due to a good priest, beautiful architecture inside the church or an interesting prayer community there. The above mentioned 3⁄4 people besides concern agrarian or small-town parishes, so the percent of people in cities who do not feel connected to their parishes is much larger, which makes it much harder to supply a reliable description.
To complete the statistical theme, 1 cannot neglect to mention to the COVID-19 pandemic. Her negative impact on religiousness did not affect those who defined themselves as profoundly believing – the percent of attending Holy Mass among this group has barely changed. The biggest decline in spiritual practices occurred among those who attended the Mass only a fewer times a year or even little before the pandemic.
Call crisis
In Poland, we have about 35 1000 priests, including little than 11 1000 monks. This is actually the highest number of clergymen in Polish history. The consequence looks different if you look at the structure of the age. Since 2010, the average age among priests has steadily increased. According to the priests themselves, erstwhile the generation ordained in the 1980s retires, they will become lacking, and the number of retired priests will be percent higher compared to active clergymen than among the remainder of society. Hence, increasingly newer decisions to combine seminars that shine voids. For example, in 2013, 401 priests were ordained, and in 2023 only 288. Additionally, in the last 5 years the number of clerics has decreased by 1/3. Among the orders chosen by young candidates are the Presbyterian Order (Dominicans), the Conventional Brothers Order (French) and the Salesian Society.
Most priests (1512) work in Tarnów diocese. There is besides the highest percent of Poles defining themselves as Catholics (99%). The least clergymen are in the Drohiczynian diocese (253), but there is simply a large number of Orthodox people there. Due to the spiritual mosaic, the Drohiczyńska diocese besides has the smallest percent of Poles declaring themselves Catholic (66%). In Poland we presently have 10,353 parishes and 45 dioceses.
Seminars are implementing newer changes in the curriculum. 1 of these is the introduction of a propedeutic (preliminary) phase, which is intended to let even better knowing of its vocation. The real results of the fresh programme will not be known for a fewer years.
Works of the Polish Church in Poland and abroad
- Missions
According to data, presently 1743 Poles participate in missions outside Poland. He uses the most in South America, and small little in Africa. He serves twice as a servant in Asia and 65 in Oceania. These figures apply to men and women together. In view of the trend, the number of Polish missionaries has decreased in fresh years and missionary communities seldom open fresh facilities, putting much effort into maintaining existing ones.
At this point, it is worth mentioning the initiative to aid the Church in the East, which gained large popularity in connection with the war in Ukraine. The squad actively supports spiritual revival in the states of the erstwhile russian Socialist Union. Only in 2022 he allocated over PLN 3.5 million to aid those in request in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan or Russia (mainly in Siberia). During the war in Syria, we could hear about the action of the Package for Aleppo, led by another church initiative, i.e. Helping the Church in Need.
- Charity activities
The least controversial activity is charity (dicons) conducted by the Church. Caritas Poland, the largest and most active charity in Poland in general, is simply a decisive leader in this matter. The numbers talk for themselves: almost 15,000 children per year receiving assistance in the vacation Action Caritas; 10,000 children – in the action of the Tornister Full of Smiles; 900 scholarships for children and youth of over PLN 850 thousand; moving close to 100 daylights and respective twelve homes of a single mother, children's homes or shelter centers for victims of home violence; 1,100 children supported by the program "Marriage Workshops"; over 100 care stations and almost 100 workshops for occupational therapy and self-help homes. No charity in Poland is even approaching these results. In addition to voluntary donations of Poles, Caritas works are besides financed by public aid. The organisation is besides financed from its own business activity. All of this gives a immense sum of about 4 million services per year.
In addition to Caritas there are besides 850 relief facilities run by Polish male and female orders. Their main focus is to aid older people, families, disabled people, children, homeless people and mediocre or single mothers. All this makes the Church the top donor of charity in all Poland.
- Education and higher education
If the school wants to be considered Catholic, it must be directed by a competent church authority or a church legal person, or simply be considered Catholic by the church authorities. And so in Poland we presently have 483 Catholic schools, including 260 simple schools, 137 advanced schools, 17 technicians, 55 peculiar schools, 9 artistic schools and 5 professional schools. A full of over 74,000 students attend. Half of these schools have public college status. Catholic schools frequently win rankings of the best schools, hence they enjoy interest not only Catholics but besides non-believers.
Universities are 3 universities (Catholic University of Lublin, John Paul II University in Cracow and Ignatianum University in Krakow), 2 universities without university status, and there are 6 theological faculties in secular universities and 81 clergy seminars. In total, this translates into 27,5,000 students, including nearly 900 students at the theological faculties of secular universities.
- Worldly Communities
The church in Poland is 65,000 various Catholic organizations or communities (including at parish levels) that gather about 2.6 million believers. On average, there are 6–7 specified groups per parish. Of these, 61% work with young people, 51% aid the elderly, 32% support the poor, 24% aid the disabled, and 11% aid the victims of violence. The sum of percentages is more than 100 due to the fact that many communities have more than 1 direction of aid.
Among the organizations dealing not only with prayer but besides with social activities, the largest include the Catholic Action (19 1000 members in 39 dioceses) and the Catholic Youth Association (10 1000 members in 36 dioceses). Much little many are Catholic Intelligence Clubs (1.7 1000 activists) and Post-Paxian Civitas Christiana (2422 members, but forming as many as 85 branches).
- Material Heritage
For centuries, Poland has suffered immense losses in material goods due to the warstorm. Hence the large function of the Church in the protection of national heritage. 15% of properties listed in the registry of monuments in Poland are church buildings. Romanesque temples are in general the oldest preserved cultural objects, which can be straight attributed to strictly Polish identity. However, the percent of moving goods is very impressive. 75% of them are temple equipment. So it should be explicitly acknowledged that the material heritage of the Polish Church is an highly crucial component of our native culture.
So what awaits the Church in Poland? Conclusion
It is not hard to draw conclusions from the above data. They can be divided into 2 categories, i.e. organization activity and the spiritual condition of Poles. There is no uncertainty that church goods are our national treasure. The statistic talk for themselves. Therefore, consideration should be given to insert between the fairy tales of populist slogans about extinguishing the Church Fund, which is inactive a vast number of the financing of monuments. Hitting to save the material Roman Catholic heritage is hitting our national culture directly, which is why the state and the nation should do a lot to save as many of them as possible.
Further, the Church's charity work is active as never and surely well refers to the tradition of helping the needy Poles, which the Church has given for centuries in the most hard times for us. It is worth noting this again – the Church in Poland through its organizations is the largest non-governmental donor of financial and material assistance. And there's no promise that in the coming years anything can change in this matter.
On a different level, the spiritual condition of Poles, for the essence of religion as such, however, is the most important. According to the data, the laicization of Poles, especially in the youngest group of adults, results. These are those who have already begun or are about to start their parents ’ lives, which may mean giving up baptism and Christian upbringing. specified a snowball effect can origin further decades of declines in spiritual practices or simply religion in God among fellow countrymen. 1 of the effects of specified trends may have been, among others, the latest results of parliamentary elections, where the unmistakably associated organization Law and Justice received very low support among the youngest voters. It is hard at this point to prophesy erstwhile and if a reflection is possible in the another direction. However, considering the results of fresh years, it is hard to be optimistic about this matter. In these matters always "helped" the turmoil and uncertainty of next day among Poles, but these are the reasons, of course, that I do not want for our fellow countrymen.
The text was published in the 29th issue of National Policy
