Power and Catholicism were inseparable in Poland. The fall of populists mirrors that of priests
The city council of Częstochowa in central Poland passed a shocking resolution last year. Councillors announced that the city no longer wished to pay for religious education in local schools and called on the government to relieve them of this duty.
Since then, many Polish cities, most recently Wrocław, have followed suit. Their declarations are of no legal consequence, but they nevertheless are powerfully symbolic of Poland’s social transformation, especially given where the rebellion originated.
Częstochowa is no ordinary city. It is the site of the Jasna Góra monastery, which houses the medieval and supposedly miraculous icon of Our Lady of Częstochowa. The monastery is the main centre of pilgrimage in Polish Catholicism. It’s like Fátima, Lourdes and the shrine of Our Lady of Knock in Ireland combined – and then some.
During the Swedish invasion of Poland in the 17th century, Jasna Góra monastery refused to surrender to the Protestant enemy despite a month-long siege. It was the last Polish stronghold. After the battle of Jasna Góra, the Polish king John II Casimir credited his victory to the divine intervention of the miraculous icon and declared Our Lady of Częstochowa to be the patron and queen of Poland for ever. The Jasna Góra monastery is a symbol of the eternal alliance of “throne and altar”, religion and politics, Polish national identity and Catholicism.
Today, the monastery is again under siege, but this time by a very different force: secular-minded local citizens. The city council is dominated by a centre-left coalition similar to the one led by Donald Tusk that won the recent national election. This coalition holds 20 of the 28 council seats, making Częstochowa politically one of the most progressive cities in Poland.
It is all a far cry from 1989, when after the fall of communism it was not uncommon to hear the end of the cold war described as a miracle delivered to us by Our Lady of Częstochowa, Poland’s “queen and protector”. After all, without Karol Wojtyła, the Pole who became Pope John Paul II in 1978, it was argued, the Solidarity trade union movement would never have taken off.
Whatever political privilege the church demanded in return, it was granted with no questions asked. One of the first decisions of the first postcommunist government, headed by Tadeusz Mazowiecki, was the introduction of religious education into all state schools.
There was not so much as a parliamentary debate on the matter. Since 99% of Poles are Catholics, anyway, it was argued, what was there to debate? Thus, since 1990 Polish taxpayers have borne the cost of supporting Catholic religious education without ever having been asked whether they wanted it or not. For 32 years nobody dared to challenge this system, until the councillors of Częstochowa finally broke the silence.
Another church demand, a ban on abortion, did not pass quietly in 1993. There were street marches and counter-marches, vigils and countervigils, and endless debates in parliament. All in vain: parliament passed one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world, providing only three exceptions: termination of pregnancy resulting from a crime, saving the woman’s life and foetal abnormalities.
It was still too lenient for the church, which never accepted the last exception. It called it “eugenics”, which is nonsensical, because foetal abnormalities are usually non-hereditary. The church finally got its way in 2020, at the height of the rule of the far-right Law and Justice (PiS) party.
It was an empty victory. Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets. The resulting mobilisation provided the genesis for the one that helped the combined forces of the democratic opposition to win last month’s general election – the votes of young people, especially young women, were crucial. The Polish church’s transition from triumphant to beleaguered in less than a decade was complete.
How did this happen? I recall attending a lecture in 2007 by James Bjork, professor of modern European history at King’s College London. He argued that while Czechs and Poles were perceived as the most extreme opposite examples of atheism and devotion in the Slavic world, the differences were not that big if you looked at everyday attitudes in both countries.
According to Bjork, the association of Polish national identity and the achievement of democracy with Catholicism was a temporary phenomenon, related principally to the papacy of John Paul II. When a country has “its own” pope, everyone is a Catholic, just as when your national team wins the World Cup, everyone is a football fan – but the support will fade sooner or later.
Back then, his theory seemed implausible. The death of John Paul II in 2005 had set off a new wave of devotion, extreme even by Polish standards. The first electoral victory of PiS later that year was one of the side-effects of Catholic nationalism. Jarosław Kaczyński quickly established his position as “the clergy’s favourite politician”.
For a while, it seemed to be working. In 2005 the Polish church still seemed immune to the secularising tendencies of the western world. But in the long run, the proximity of PiS and the church became problematic for both.
In 2019, Polish public opinion was shocked by an investigative documentary, Tell No One, dealing with the sexual abuse of children by Polish priests. It was proven beyond any doubt that the church was active in covering up these crimes without any care for the victims. It also turned out that this policy originated from the very top of the Catholic hierarchy. The church’s reaction only worsened the situation. Instead of apologising, many clerical figures adopted an aggressive stance, presenting themselves as the real victims of “persecution” by the media. It backfired. Even the most faithful had had enough.
The myth of “99% Catholics in Poland” is no longer relevant. In last year’s census, only 71.3% of the population declared themselves as adherents to Catholicism. The actual participation in Catholic religious ceremonies is even smaller. According to the church’s own data, in 2021, only 28.3% of the population attended Sunday mass (in 1991 it was a staggering 47.6%). We don’t know the current numbers, because the church has stopped publishing them.
The new centre-left coalition is far from being unanimous on the issues of church and state. We will know soon how the new government responds to requests from city councils, or how it will deal with demands for the liberalisation of the law on abortion. But the long-term trajectory is obvious. The “throne and altar” alliance in Poland is already dead, and nothing can save it. And that is nothing short of a miracle.
Wojciech Orliński is a Polish journalist and author