Roman Catholic Church in Poland

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The Roman Catholic Church in Poland is the largest and most influential Christian community in the country. It is divided into 14 archbishoprics and 27 dioceses as well as the military ordinariate.

The Catholic Church is by far the largest religious community in Poland. It has 32.97 million inhabitants, which is more than 85% of the population of Poland. 32.91 million, that is more than 99% of the Catholics in Poland, belong to the Latin Church . 55,000 residents belong to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church . According to a survey by the Instytut Statystyki Kościoła Katolickiego (Statistical Institute of the Catholic Church), an average of 38.3% of Catholics attended Sunday mass in 2017. Participation was highest in the Diocese of Tarnów (71.7%) and lowest in the Archdiocese of Łódź and Stettin-Cammin (both 24.6%).

history

Pope visit of John Paul II to Sosnowiec in 1999

Since the Christianization of Poland in 966, the Catholic Church - beyond the religious - always had a strong influence on the social and political development of the country. Especially in times of foreign rule, it played an important role in the cohesion of the Polish nation.

In the Second World War , 2,795 priests and 6 bishops died, the vast majority of them as victims of the German occupiers , the rest as victims of the Soviet occupiers of eastern Poland . 28% of all Catholic clerics were murdered or died in custody between 1939 and 1945; Apart from the Polish Jews , there was no other social group anywhere near a high percentage of deaths. 870 Polish priests died in the Dachau concentration camp alone .

In 1945 the German Catholic church structures east of the Oder-Neisse border were replaced by a Polish church administration. The way the Catholic Church in Poland deals with the Oder-Neisse question is assessed differently by the German and Polish sides.

The role of the Polish clergy in the expulsion of German fellow believers and sisters from the areas east of the Oder and Neisse in the late 1940s is controversial in Germany .

From a Polish point of view, the German church administration in the Oder-Neisse areas was unable to act after the German-Polish border was shifted to the west; The Polish Church had to intervene to ensure pastoral care for the incoming Polish population and to ensure the continued existence of Catholicism in these areas.

Under communist rule , the Catholic Church was a counter-power that attracted many Poles. The Roman Catholic Church retained its autonomy under the leadership of the Primate of the Millennium Stefan Wyszyński and was again strengthened in its system-independent position through the election of Cardinal Karol Wojtyła as Pope John Paul II . The first visit of the new Pope to his homeland in June 1979, as a non-communist mass event, aroused the awareness of broad opposition to the regime, which was responsible for the country's fatal economic development; he prepared the ground for the formation of the Solidarność trade union and the fall of communism.

After the change in 1989 , the Apostolic Constitution Totus Tuus Poloniae Populus decreed on March 25, 1992 by Pope John Paul II a new structure and restructuring of the Catholic Church in Poland.

Since there are no official statistics in Poland that record religious affiliation, the number of Catholics in Poland can only be roughly estimated. In 2011 around 87% of the Polish population are believed to have belonged to the Roman Catholic Church. The remaining five million Poles do not belong to any religion or to more than 40 other denominations. According to a survey by the Instytut Statystyki Kościoła Katolickiego (Statistical Institute of the Catholic Church), an average of 38.3% of Catholics attended Sunday mass in 2017. Participation was highest in the Diocese of Tarnów (71.7%) and lowest in the Archdiocese of Łódź and Stettin-Cammin (both 24.6%).

The Church still has considerable political influence today. It is the second largest owner of real estate after the state and has around 300 press organs and 50 radio or television stations.

In the first two decades of the 21st century, the great influence of the Catholic Church declined noticeably, especially in the big cities. A church-critical party, the Palikot movement , received 10 percent of the vote in the election on October 9, 2011 and moved into the Polish lower house . The fact that many Catholic priests are affiliated with right-wing conservative parties has weakened the influence of the Catholic church leadership on society in Poland.

Hundreds of Catholic priests and religious have sexually abused minors and adults in Poland .
The Polish film Kler (Klerus), which was released in September 2018, was viewed by over 4.3 million people in the first four weeks.
The documentary Tylko nie mów nikomu (Don't tell anyone) was viewed more than 20 million times on YouTube in May 2019. The film has fueled a long smoldering debate about the Catholic Church and its role in Polish society. Before the 2019 European elections in Poland , the debate also hit politics.

Dioceses

Overview map of the Polish dioceses. The numbering corresponds to the list on the left. One to four suffragan dioceses are subordinate to an archdiocese , so the 14 ecclesiastical provinces are composed.
Roman Catholic Church
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church

Nunciature

The diplomatic representation of the Holy See in Poland was initially restricted after the Second World War. An Apostolic Delegate has been active in Poland since 1975 . From 1986 Archbishop Francesco Colasuonno and from 1989 to 2010 the Pole Józef Kowalczyk represented the Holy See as Apostolic Nuncio . Celestino Migliore was the nuncio in Poland until May 28, 2016, and the previous nuncio in India, Salvatore Pennacchio , was appointed as his successor on August 6 of the same year .

literature

  • Johann Severin Vater: Extension of the latest church history in the Kingdom of Poland. 1820 ( full text on Archive.org ).
  • Klaus Ziemer : The role of the Catholic Church in the political system change from 1988 to 1990 . In: Hans-Joachim Veen , Peter März, Franz-Josef Schlichting (Eds.): Church and Revolution: Christianity in East Central Europe before and after 1989 . Böhlau, Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-412-20403-7 , pp. 75-100.
  • Theo Mechtenberg: Poland's Catholic Church between tradition and modernity . Neisse Verlag, Dresden 2010, ISBN 978-3-940310-96-5 .
  • Robert Zurek: The Catholic Church of Poland and the «Recovered Territories» 1945–1948 . Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2014, ISBN 978-3-631-64622-9 .

See also

Web links

Commons : Roman Catholic Church in Poland  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Główny Urząd Statystyczny : Mały rocznik statystyczny Polski 2018 . Zakład Wydawnictw Statystycznych, Warszawa 2018, p. 114 ( gov.pl [PDF; accessed June 28, 2019]).
  2. ^ Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae in Polonia . Instytut Statystyki Kościoła Katolickiego, Warsaw 2019, p. 27. (PDF)
  3. ↑ a b Catholic News Agency : Poland's priests and bishops commemorate their murdered in Dachau , April 30, 2015.
  4. ↑ Robert Żurek: The Catholic Church of Poland and the «Reclaimed Territories» 1945–1948 . Verlag Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin / Bern / Bruxelles / New York / Oxford / Vienna 2014, ISBN 978-3-631-64622-9 , p. 11.
  5. ↑ Robert Żurek: The Catholic Church of Poland and the «Reclaimed Territories» 1945–1948 . Verlag Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin / Bern / Bruxelles / New York / Oxford / Vienna 2014, ISBN 978-3-631-64622-9 , p. 11 ff.
  6. ^ Lothar Groppe SJ: Sermon during the pilgrimage of the expellees on October 17, 1999 in Cologne Cathedral. In: Theological . Volume 29, No. 11/12. November / December 1999, p. 614.
  7. ^ Stanislaw Zimniak: Servant of God August Hlond (1881-1948) . German province of the Salesians of Don Bosco. 2010 (available from [1] ).
  8. ↑ Robert Żurek: The Catholic Church of Poland and the «Reclaimed Territories» 1945–1948 . Verlag Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin / Bern / Bruxelles / New York / Oxford / Vienna 2014, ISBN 978-3-631-64622-9 , pp. 12-13.
  9. ↑ Hansjakob Stehle : Poland is not yet lost ( Die Zeit 24/1979)
  10. ^ Włodzimierz Borodziej : History of Poland in the 20th century. CH Beck, 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-60648-9 , pp. 358f.
  11. ↑ full text (Polish)
  12. ↑ Główny Urząd Statystyczny : Mały rocznik statystyczny Polski 2012 . Zakład Wydawnictw Statystycznych, Warszawa 2012, p. 117, 134–135 ( gov.pl [PDF; accessed January 15, 2013]).
  13. ^ Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae in Polonia . Instytut Statystyki Kościoła Katolickiego, Warsaw 2019, p. 27. (PDF)
  14. ↑ Alice Kohli: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you." nzz.ch of November 3, 2011, accessed on February 22, 2012
  15. ↑ n-tv: Church no longer the measure of all things.
  16. ↑ spiegel.de May 25, 2019 / Jan Puhl: Poland's fight for the church
Roman Catholic Church in Poland
Archdiocese of Białystok

Diocese of Drohiczyn  | Diocese of Łomża

Archdiocese of Krakow

Diocese of Bielsko-Bistywiec  | Diocese of Kielce  | Diocese of Tarnów

Archdiocese of Częstochowa

Diocese of Radom  | Diocese of Sosnowiec

Archdiocese of Gdansk

Diocese of Pelplin  | Diocese of Toruń

Archdiocese of Gniezno

Bydgoszcz Diocese  | Diocese of Włocławek

Archdiocese of Katowice

Diocese of Gliwice  | Diocese of Opole

Archdiocese of Łódź

Diocese of Łowicz

Archdiocese of Lublin

Diocese of Sandomierz  | Diocese of Siedlce

Archdiocese of Poznan

Diocese of Kalisz

Archdiocese of Przemyśl

Diocese of Rzeszów  | Diocese of Zamość-Lubaczów

Archdiocese of Szczecin-Kamień

Diocese of Koszalin-Kołobrzeg  | Diocese of Zielona Góra-Gorzów Wielkopolski

Archdiocese of Warmia

Diocese of Elbląg  | Diocese of Ełk

Archdiocese of Warsaw

Diocese of Płock  | Diocese of Warsaw-Praga

Archdiocese of Wroclaw

Diocese of Legnica  | Diocese of Świdnica