It is vital for Polish children to receive a Christian education so that they can “save Latin civilisation in Europe and the world”, says the education minister. He warns that Christianity is “under attack”, with Poland the only country in Europe where it “has not raised the white flag”.
The remarks by Przemysław Czarnek, a controversial figure known for his archconservative views, came at a “Congress of Christian Pedagogy” organised by Jagiellonian College, a private university, and the commissioner for children’s rights, and held under the patronage of the education ministry.
“Thank you for organising this congress…in the face of a great attack on Christianity,” said Czarnek at the event. “Europe is today a place where Christianity is fought against with unprecedented power.”
“This de-Christianisation is progressing in front of our eyes,” he warned. “Christianophobia is spreading in the countries of Western Europe on an unprecedented scale and Poland is, as Archbishop [of Kraków] Marek Jędraszewski notes, the last country in which the Christian church is not waving the white flag.”
“The western church is empty…because it deviated from the transmission of Christian values,” continued the minister. “The education of future generations is needed in order to save Latin and Christian civilisation in…Europe and in the world.”
“It is on our shoulders – Christian educators – that this responsibility rests today,” concluded Czarnek. “We will be able to rise to this test on the condition that we are no longer afraid of being Christians, of thinking in a Christian way, of passing Christian values to young generations.”
During his remarks, Czarnek highlighted two policies that he has been pursuing in order to promote such teaching. He revealed that this week the cabinet will be discussing the “Academic Freedom Package” he has proposed to implement at universities.
This is a set of policies that he has argued is necessary to prevent conservative and Christian voices being silenced by the “totalitarian dictatorship of left-liberal views” that “dominates higher education” and has begun to “penetrate schools”.
“Christians are afraid to express their ideas, based on Christianity, because they are afraid of disciplinary proceedings,” said Czarnek at this week’s congress. He also reiterated his plans to made it obligatory for children to take ethics classes if they choose not to attend optional Catholic catechism lessons.
The minister recently called on schools to use the teachings of former Polish pope John Paul II to instruct children in business and sexuality. In February, he launched a new centre to research “Christianophobia” and “disseminate knowledge about the persecution of Christians and the idea of martyrdom for the faith”.
He has also given his backing to a new conservative university in Warsaw, Collegium Intermarium, that aims to “defend students and teachers from ideological censorship” and “forge elites for the entire region” of Central and Eastern Europe.
After Czarnek was named as education minister last autumn, hundreds of academics in Poland and abroad expressed opposition to his appointment and called for an international boycott of the minister due to his “homophobic, xenophobic and misogynistic views”.
Czarnek has claimed that “LGBT ideology comes from the same roots as Nazism” and that its adherents “are not equal to normal people” so we should “stop listening to this idiocy about human rights or equality”.
Culture minister Piotr Gliński also attended the inauguration of the university, linked to the ultraconservative Ordo Iuris, which aims to “forge elites for the entire region” of Central and Eastern Europe and allow debate without “ideological censorship”https://t.co/W51PDJy3Mg
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) May 28, 2021
Main image credit: Nazaret Kielco LO/Facebook
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
