A ‘time of crisis’ for Poland’s Catholic Church

POLAND
National Catholic Reporter

January 15, 2021

By Donald Snyder

It was a gloomy forecast for the Polish Catholic Church.

“I say it’s a dark night for the church,” said Zbigniew Nosowski, one of Poland’s prominent intellectuals. “It is a difficult time of crisis.”

Nosowski, a sociologist and journalist, is editor-in-chief of Wiez (Bond), a scholarly quarterly. Speaking in a phone interview, he said that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the hierarchy of the church and its unwavering embrace of the right-wing authoritarian ruling party, Law and Justice, led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

The church played a crucial role in the transition from communism to democracy, said Dariusz Stola, professor of history at the Institute for Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. As a result, the church became enmeshed in the nation’s political affairs.

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