From the DAWN Media Group: Poland’s Roman Catholic Church urges followers to vote

WARSAW: Poland’s powerful Roman Catholic Church is urging it’s huge flock in the country to use the European Parliament election this week to pick lawmakers who reflect church values.

More than 90 percent of Poles are Catholic and Polish bishops recently called on ‘all faithful to choose people in the elections who fully represent the point of view of the Church regarding ethical and social questions, in particular the protection of human life, marriage and the family.’

‘In this way, each one of us can contribute to the renewal of the Christian face and culture of Europe,’ the top clergy said, highlighting their opposition to abortion, in vitro fertilisation, euthanasia and gay marriage.

‘Obviously the church thinks it is it’s obligation to take a position in the debate,’ sociologist Jacek Kucharczyk from the independent Institute of Public Affairs (ISP) think tank in Warsaw told AFP.

‘Nevertheless, many Poles who define themselves as Catholics do not accept the church’s involvement in politics,’ he added. ‘They don’t like to have priests indicate candidates that a Catholic should support.’ During Poland’s 2001 parliamentary elections, Poles voted en masse for the leftist ex-communist party and for ex-communist Aleksander Kwasniewski as president in 1995, instead of Poland’s Solidarity union legend Lech Walesa, a devout Catholic. Kwasniewski won a second term in 2000…

This is why the Roman Church in Poland is loosing adherents, most particularly among the young. Prof. Zdislaw Mach, Director of the Centre for European Studies, Jagiellonian University, concludes in The Roman Catholic Church in Poland and the Dynamics of Social Identity in Polish Society:

To sum up, it seems that the Roman Catholic Church finds it difficult to respond to new challenges which arise from the development of democracy in eastern Europe and of the desire of those countries to join European institutions. The Church still uses the discourse of conflict, inherited after communist times, when the Church built its unique position, at least in the Catholic countries like Poland. Moral monopoly and direct influence on the state and the law are still its main aims. The pluralistic model is not particularly popular among the Church representatives and, consequently, the result of their activities is creation of boundaries dividing the society along religious lines. On the other hand the Church is very slow in reforming itself in such a way that would be more flexible and better adapted to the rules of the market and ideological competition. Consequently the Church is loosing its popular support and its influence, and often relies on the old methods of ideological polarisation and the discourse of conflict to win its cause.

Among my friends and acquaintances in Poland, this rings true. Their children have no attachment to the Church. They see the Church as a force organized for the purpose of political gain. What they truly seek is an enrichment of the inner life of the soul, from which the fruitful decisions the Church advocates for will come. But that’s a long process, the building of a society from within. It seems easier to pound the pulpit and demand the vote under penalty of hell. Just the sort of thing Fr. Hodur and the Catholics of Scranton rallied against in 1897.