Częstochowa has become the first city in Poland to call for the end of municipal funding for Catholic catechism in schools. Local councillors argue that the costs are too high and note that the number of students attending is rapidly declining.
In Poland, religion classes are hosted and funded by public schools but with curriculums and teachers (often priests or nuns) chosen by the Catholic church. The lessons are optional but are attended by the majority of pupils.
In Częstochowa – a city of 220,000, which is home to Poland’s most venerated Catholic icon, the Black Madonna of Częstochowa – around 9.5 million zloty (€2 million) is paid annually towards the salaries of religion teachers. 70% of that comes from the national state education subsidy but the rest is covered by the city itself.
In a resolution passed yesterday by a majority of councillors, they appealed to the prime minister and education minister to let the city stop paying funds for religion classes from the municipal budget.
The councillors note that, “despite more and more students resigning from participating in religion classes every year, the costs of organising classes do not decrease”.
Figures published in September showed that 54% of high-school students in Częstochowa now attend religion classes, which is 8% lower in 2021 and 15% lower than two years ago. Similar declines have been recorded in many cities around Poland.
“In view of the very difficult economic situation faced by local governments and the dynamically growing costs of servicing the education system, we would like to ask for the liquidation of financing religion lessons from the budget of the city of Częstochowa,” reads the resolution.
The councillors note that their appeal is “not directed against any religion or against any church” and “concerns the abolition of funding for classes of all denominations”. In practice, however, any such funding cuts would apply to Catholic catechism classes.
The current national-conservative ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which has close ties to the Catholic church, would not contemplate cutting state funding for religion. But, “if the government wants to finance religious education, let it do it itself” rather than leaving it to local authorities, say the councillors.
In 2019, Poland’s education ministry reported that religious education costs the state around 1.5 billion zloty annually. That includes over 1 billion złoty a year paid to teachers of the classes. In the southern province of Małopolska, activists have also been seeking to reduce state spending on teaching Catholic catechism.
A nationwide survey by IBRiS for Radio Zet published in June this year found that 66% of the public want the state to stop financing the church and 44% want religion classes removed from schools entirely.
In 2019, a Kantar poll found that 66% of Poles want religion classes to be funded by the church itself. Another survey the same year, by SW Research for Rzeczpospolita, found that 55.5% wanted to end state funding for the classes.
Main image credit: Sebastian Trzeszkowski – Radny Miasta Częstochowy/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.
