It is not that no understanding of Polish politics and society is complete without an understanding of the role played by the Catholic Church; rather, no such understanding is possible. As Sabrina Ramet observes in her introduction to this edited volume, the Church has a strong claim to be considered the fourth estate in Poland. This is the influence it wields not only over the private lives of the faithful, but in the public spheres of politics, education, and the media itself.
While the Church by no means occupies as powerful a position as it had envisaged for itself at the beginning of Poland's transition from communism, it has nevertheless succeeded in parlaying its historical status as the majority faith in Poland, and the immense moral authority it accrued during the communist era, into a privileged position in the new order, with a Concordat regulating the relationship between the Church and the Polish state and securing significant expenditures from the state budget, provision of catechism-based religious education in public schools, and a media law which imposes upon broadcasters the obligation to respect the religious feelings of their audiences, “and, in particular, the Christian system of values.” Legally, morally, and physically, the Church is an entrenched element of Poland's Third Republic. However, relationships between the Church, the Polish state, the political class, and the citizenry are by no means as straightforward as these formal structures might imply. The contest for power between the Church and political parties, and the persistence of Catholic identity among the majority of Poles amid trends of secularization, have given rise to certain paradoxes and contradictions, several of which Religion, Politics, and Values in Poland sets out to investigate.
The first section of the volume focuses on the politics of religion since 1989, with particular emphasis on the institutional status of the Catholic Church during the complex processes of post-communist transition and European integration, and on the controversies that have arisen as a result of the Church's renewed attempts to exert influence on areas of public policy. The chapter by Leszczyńska draws a useful distinction between three currents in the Church and in Polish Catholicism more broadly: a weak “affirmative” current of those who are relatively socially progressive and trenchantly pro-European; a “selective” current of those who generally approve of European integration but bemoan many of its consequences; and a “total” current of those whose rejection of integration is couched in a general antipathy toward modernity.
The chapters in this section place greater emphasis on the latter of these currents, focusing on ways in which the Church has sought to stem the tide of secularism and liberal values. The chapter by Szwed and Zielińska on the politics of gender is interesting and informative in its own right, but its particular value lies in the way in which it uses this debate to illustrate a broader set of disagreements over where individual autonomy and privacy ends and the purview of the Church begins. As Zwierdżdżyński shows in his chapter on the politics of religious education, the institutionalization of Catholic influence has been the cause of significant controversy even among those who identify with the Church and share its values. Given the extent of public acclamation for the role it played in opposing communism, the Church was surprised to find just how much resistance there was to its assertion of a privileged position during the initial period of transition.
Nevertheless, the Church has succeeded in establishing an enduring position in the public sphere that reaches beyond its own formal structures. The most vivid example of this is the Radio Maryja conglomerate, a set of media and educational outlets set up by the controversial Redemptorist priest Father Tadeusz Rydzyk. In his chapter on the Radio Maryja phenomenon, Ireneusz Krzemiński provides an absorbing account of the roles played by the various Radio Maryja organizations in creating a new social identity — the nationalist, conservative, Eurosceptic “Radio Maryja listener” — through the propagation of a popularized, “folk” version of Catholicism that has often incorporated xenophobic and anti-minority rhetoric. The threat posed by Radio Maryja to liberal pluralism is very real, yet it is a pity that more attention was not paid to the role this organization has played in providing excluded and isolated individuals with access to a thriving grassroots network of prayer circles and social organizations. It is another of Polish Catholicism's paradoxes that Radio Maryja has proven one of the more successful organizations of civil society, as well as uncivil society.
Two chapters in this section are less clearly connected with the overarching theme. Pacek's chapter offers a very informative overview of the various religious minorities that exist alongside the Catholic hegemon. However, while there is some discussion of the responses of the state to new religious organizations, there is only scant treatment of the interactions between minority religions, the privileged Catholic majority, and the state. Similarly, while Obirek's chapter provides an illuminating discussion of the nature of Pope John Paul II's intellectual contributions to modern Catholic teaching, it is unfortunate that relatively little attention is paid to the impact of these ideas on political institutions and social values. Given that one of the key contradictions in Polish religious life concerns the respect and deference given to “our Polish Pope” and the values he articulated and embodied, and the increasing tendency of Polish Catholics to turn away from those values, it would have been useful had this chapter sought to explore the paradox of a uniquely charismatic figure who — to his evident frustration — remained unable to turn his compatriots away from the pull of a secular lifestyle.
The second section focuses on this clash of values. As Borowik shows in her chapter on continuity and change amid post-communist transformation, the stabilization of the institutional position of the Church has not resulted in a stabilization of public attitudes, which remain in a considerable state of flux. Active participation in Church rituals continues to decline, declarations of belief are becoming more qualified, and moral convictions over key issues such as divorce, contraception and pre-marital intercourse are increasingly liberal (although attitudes to abortion remain more volatile). Marody and Mandes identify similar tendencies in their analysis of data from the European Values Survey: since 1990 there has been a decrease in the proportion of Poles who see God as playing an important role in their lives, and a decrease in the proportion of those who derive a sense of strength and security from religion. These findings support Borowik's contention that Poles are increasingly “belonging without believing” (208): they remain strongly attached to Catholic identity, but are increasingly less likely to espouse a genuine attachment to the faith.
This argument finds an echo in Mariański's chapter on the public engagement of the Church in Polish society. While nine in 10 Poles identify themselves as Catholic, only just over half say that they believe in and follow the injunctions of the Church, whose reputation as a social institution has been subject to some fluctuation, particularly at times when it has sought to play an independent role in party politics. Mariański's chapter identifies one of the key paradoxes of Polish attitudes toward the Church: while there is clear acceptance of the expression of Catholic identity in the public sphere through, for example, the presence of religious paraphernalia and symbols in public buildings, there is a strong aversion to the direct intervention of the Church in politics. While the Church can count on a privileged position in public life, it cannot always count on having the privilege to make use of it. Mariański's conclusion that “Catholicism is not as strong as its supporters think, nor as weak as its critics describe” (236) nicely captures this sense of omnipresence without omnipotence.
This observation leads neatly to the final paradox. As Grabowska remarks in her chapter on religiosity and politics, secularization theory should lead us to conclude that the social function of religion in modernizing societies like Poland should be declining. Yet while many of the aforementioned trends point to processes of secularization, religious identification remains a highly significant determinant of electoral behavior. First, religiosity is strongly associated with ideology: greater levels of religiosity are correlated with more right-wing attitudes. Second, controlling for a range of other explanatory factors, Grabowska finds that church going increases the probability both of electoral participation, and of voting for the Law and Justice party, Poland's major right-wing party. These findings are persuasive, and consistent with the existing literature on the demand side. However, to give a fuller explanation of why religion still remains so important to Polish party politics in spite of apparently countervailing socio-demographic and attitudinal trends, the volume would have benefited significantly from a dedicated chapter analyzing the supply side: in particular the ideological exploitation of religious identities and values, and the use of religious social organizations to mobilize support for particular parties.
On considering the wealth of evidence and argument marshalled in this book, the reader is likely to be struck by the simple question posed by Marody and Mandes: “Why do Poles still perceive themselves as Catholic and consider themselves religious” (251)? Amid processes of secularization and evident conflicts of interest and authority between the organizational structures of the Church and the institutions of state, why does the Church retain its position of institutional privilege and moral hegemony? Marody and Mandes conclude that the answer is to be found in the lack of alternative identities capable of structuring social life and anchoring Polish citizens within it. While an increasing proportion of Poles are moving away from unqualified belief, there are no comparable master narratives that can lay a claim on their belonging. Like the book as a whole, this argument is interesting, persuasive, and yet frustratingly incomplete.
