Quo Vadis, Polonia? On religious loyalty, exit, and voice

Abstract

Poland’s public sphere, in the three decades following the fall of communism, has been shaped by tensions between secular and religious visions of the polity. This article analyzes significant trends in the politico-religious landscape of contemporary Poland and discusses the growing polarization of Polish society around religion and politics. While the Catholic Church openly supports the country’s populist and right-wing government and remains strong from the loyalty of a significant portion on the Polish population, resistance to that political alliance and to the traditional association between Polishness and Catholicism is observable in various corners of Polish society. These include factions within the Catholic Church arguing for the depoliticization of Polish Catholicism; apostate and secularist movements; and the support for, and participation in, a notable Jewish revival. The article shows that while very different in both content and form, these movements converge in their effort to secularize Polish national identity and build a public sphere where various religious and non-religious value systems co-exist.

Alterations in Religious Rituals Due to COVID-19 Could Be Related to Intragroup Negativity: A Case of Changes in Receiving Holy Communion in the Roman Catholic Community in Poland

“…Polish identity is perceived to be strongly associated with Catholicism (Bobrowicz and Nowak 2021;Millard 1997). However, religious identity is highly fragmented at the individual level of believers of the Catholic Church in Poland (Topidi 2019), and at the social level (Zubrzycki 2020). These divisions, in a very simplified sense, can be defined as a conflict between "progressive" and "traditional" Catholics.…”