The scandals surrounding sexual violence in the church environment and the latest decision of the Polish Constitutional Court on abortion have sparked a debate in the country, among other things, about the relationship between church and politics. Another reason for the aggravation of the debate was the approaching Christmas. Observers wonder what role the Catholic Church plays in society and politics today.
Christ’s ideas are not reflected in politics
In political terms, adherents of the Catholic faith are not represented in any way, — this is the comment of the publication Przewodnik Katolicki:
“None of the political parties in Poland implements the social teaching of the church. The logic of the modern political system simply does not allow this. And one should not expect that anything will change in this regard either — after all, today’s believers are much more inspired by the ideas of conservatism, liberalism, or socialism, but not their own ideological tradition — the social teaching of the church. … What should Christian Democrats stand for today? But in the papal encyclicals you can find a lot of useful ideas, starting with the reform of labor law (the idea of moving to a four-day working week), educational reform (increasing the number of religious lessons) — right up to the fight against fake information!”
Faith has long lost its appeal
As the newspaper Rzeczpospolita notes, people began to turn away from the church much earlier:
“Didn’t the crisis of faith begin much earlier than the moment reported by sociological research? Wasn’t the departure of young people from the church preceded by a denial of faith on the part of their parents, manifested in many decisions, big and small? Wasn’t the building of Polish Catholicism shaken many years ago, when, under the influence of the decisions of the Communists, a situation developed in which one in two women in the country had an abortion — and when the state was able to convince families that two children were the best solution? … It was then that it was necessary to begin to return people to the bosom of the church.”
