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Poland The Polish Catholic Church and the State
Throughout the 1800s and 1900s, the Catholic Church was
not
only a spiritual institution but also a social and
political
force. The dynamics of church-state relations in Poland
after the
communist era were shaped by the multifaceted identity the
church
had assumed during many decades when conventional social
and
political institutions were suppressed. That identity,
called by
one scholar a "civil religion," combined religious and
political
symbols in Poles' conception of their national history and
destiny. Important aspects of this social and political
role
remained intact after 1989, fueling a controversial new
drive for
church activism.
Data as of October 1992
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