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Poland Church and State after 1989
The approach of the Polish Catholic Church to the
Polish
state changed drastically after 1989. The church's
influential
role in promoting opposition views, its close relationship
with
Solidarity, and its mediation between factions in the
tumultuous
1980s brought it enhanced political power in the
postcommunist
system. In 1989 virtually every significant public
organization
in Poland saw the church as a partner in its activities
and
decisions. One result of this identification was that when
the
Sejm began deliberations on a new constitution in 1990,
the
Episcopate requested that the document virtually abolish
the
separation of church and state. Such a change of
constitutional
philosophy would put the authority of the state behind
such
religious guarantees as the right to religious education
and the
right to life beginning at conception (hence a ban on
abortion).
Throughout the communist era, the separation of church and
state
had been the basis of the church's refusal to acknowledge
the
authority of atheistic political regimes over
ecclesiastical
activities. In justifying its new approach to the
separation
doctrine, the Episcopate explained that the communist
regimes had
discredited the doctrine as a constitutional foundation
for
postcommunist governance by using the separation of church
and
state to defend their totalitarian control of society
against
church interference.
As a political matter, however, the unleashing of
stronger
church influence in public life began to alienate parts of
the
population within two years of the passage of the bill
that
restored freedom of religion. Catholic intellectuals, who
had
shared opposition sympathies with the church in the
communist
era, also had opposed the autocratic rule of Cardinal
Wyszynski.
Many people feared that compromise between the church and
the
communist state might yield an alliance that in effect
would
establish an official state church. Once the common
opponent, the
communist system, disappeared in 1989, these fears revived
and
spread to other parts of Polish society.
In the period that followed, critical issues were the
reintroduction of religious instruction in public
schools--which
happened nationwide at church insistence, without
parliamentary
discussion, in 1990--and legal prohibition of abortion.
Almost
immediately after the last communist regime fell, the
church
began to exert pressure for repeal of the liberal
communist-era
abortion law in effect since 1956. Between 1990 and 1992,
church
pressure brought three progressively tighter restrictions
on
birth control and abortion, although surveys showed that
about 60
percent of Poles backed freedom of individual choice on
that
issue. By 1991, the proper boundary of church intervention
in
social policy making was a divisive social and political
issue.
At that point, only 58 percent of citizens polled rated
the
church the most-respected institution in Polish public
life--
second behind the army. By contrast, one year before 90
percent
of citizens polled had rated the church as most respected.
The church responded to the conditions of the reform
era in
other ways as well. It campaigned vigorously (but
unsuccessfully)
to prevent dissemination of pornographic materials, which
became
quite abundant in all East European nations after 1989 and
were
viewed as a moral threat. The church strongly defended aid
for
the poor, some aspects of which were suspended in the
period of
austerity that accompanied Poland's drive toward
capitalism,
although some policy makers saw welfare programs as
remnants of
the communist state
(see The Welfare System
, this ch.).
Following
the issuance of a papal encyclical on the condition of the
poor,
Cardinal Glemp stressed the moral dangers of the free
market.
After 1989 the church had to cut its highly
professional
publication operations drastically. In 1992 the church
discussed
improving access to the lay community, however, by
publishing a
mass-circulation newspaper and establishing a Catholic
press
agency. Glemp also considered decentralization of the
church
hierarchy and establishment of more dioceses to reach the
faithful more directly.
Data as of October 1992
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