In order to help parishioners prepare for the annual pastoral visit that takes place after Christmas (known as kolęda in Polish), a church in the city of Białystok published guidelines on its website. They include instructions on how to dress and behave, and a reminder that donations to the priest are traditional.
The parish warns that those who refuse the pastoral visit are expressing a lack of identification with the church and, therefore, “agreeing to being refused all future pastoral services”, reports Catholic news service Deon.pl
The rulebook, which was first brought to national attention by NaTemat.pl, a news website, then instructs worshippers to greet the priest in “formal attire with shoes, not slippers”. Receiving the priest barefoot “is an expression of the highest contempt”, warns the document.
“Dogs should be locked away in an appropriate room beforehand,” the guide continues. “A dog that touches the priest’s surplice with its paw is not a welcoming gesture, but a sign of neglect from the hosts.”
The rulebook also criticises those who do not prepare the necessary accessories – a white cloth, an aspergillum, holy water, two candlesticks and Holy Bible – or who borrow them from the neighbours last minute.
It also notes that “all members of the household should be present”. In particular, parents should “not allow children or youths to leave the house during the pastoral visit”. It is also important for children to prepare material from their Catholic catechism classes to show the priest.
The parish’s website highlights that the pastoral visit is an excellent opportunity to talk not only “about the problems of the family, but also about issues concerning our parish community and our fatherland”.
It also addresses the issue of donations, which are traditionally given to the priest in an envelope. On the parish website, members of the congregation are reminded that they can “voluntarily give two donations: one for the priest, and another for the church”, which currently requires “much maintenance work”. (The church suffered a major fire in 2013.)
NaTemat reports that the same parish issued a “bailiff-style letter” to congregants in 2018, reminding them of “overdue voluntary” donations. It has also reminded parishioners to dress appropriately for church, “especially women sitting in the front pews”, who should avoid “wearing a short dress or skirt” as this “disturbs those conducting the service”.
Post-Christmas pastoral visits are a widely practised tradition in Poland, where over 91% of the population identify as Catholic, according to a 2018 report of Statistics Poland (GUS), a state agency.
However, data published the same year by the Pew Research Centre shows Poland to be the country with the largest drop in religiosity from the older to younger generation, with young Poles declaring themselves being significantly less attached to religion than their elders.
Poland has the biggest decline in religiosity from the older to the younger generation among any of the countries surveyed by @pewresearch https://t.co/oAA9tBfSr4
— Notes from Poland ?? (@notesfrompoland) October 18, 2019
Main image credit: Pixnio (under public domain CC0)
Monika Prończuk is the deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She was previously the Nico Colchester fellow at the Financial Times, acting FT Poland correspondent, and journalist at OKO.press, an independent fact-checking media outlet. Her articles have appeared in Quartz, Financial Times, Politico, Gazeta Wyborcza and Tygodnik Powszechny.
