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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
A long-term decline in trust in the Catholic church in Poland has accelerated over the last year, with only 35% of Poles now saying that they trust it.
Meanwhile, the armed forces now enjoy record-high (and almost universal) trust, according to the latest findings from a long-running study by pollster IBRiS on Poles’ level of trust in prominent institutions.
The agency’s latest polling, commissioned by the Polish Press Agency (PAP), shows that trust in the armed forces has reached 94%, up from 92% last year and a big jump from 70% in 2023. Meanwhile, NATO now enjoys the trust of 76% of Poles, up from 61% in 2016, when IBRiS’s polling began.
“The results are a perfect illustration of how the current geopolitical situation is redefining the hierarchy of trust in Poland,” Kamil Smogorzewski of IBRiS told PAP. “Faced with a military threat beyond our eastern border, society naturally turns to institutions perceived as fundamental to defense.”
Meanwhile, trust in the European Union continues to fall, reaching 50%, down from 55% last year and 62% in 2023. “The decline may indicate that [the EU’s] role – perceived as more economic and political – is losing importance in the face of more pressing challenges,” says Smogorzewski.
However, he also points to a general growing “polarisation and distrust” towards the EU in Poland, where the pro-EU government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk has regularly clashed with the more eurosceptic conservative opposition over relations with Brussels.
Meanwhile, IBRiS’s latest data show that a long-term decline in trust of the Catholic church in Poland – where around 70% of people identify as Catholics – has accelerated over the last year.
In 2016, the church enjoyed the trust of 58% of Poles, but that figure has now fallen to 35%. In the last year alone, it dropped by over 4 percentage points, which is much higher than the previous annual average fall. Meanwhile, the proportion saying they distrust the church has almost doubled since 2016, from 24% to 47%.
“The results leave no doubt that we are facing a crisis of trust [in the church] with unprecedented dynamics,” says Smogorzewski. “The existing processes of trust erosion have accelerated.”
“The church is increasingly losing its position as a natural authority in society,” he added. “These results indicate the need for deep reflection and a strategic shift in communication to regain at least some of the lost social capital.”
A growing number of Poles are turning away from the Catholic church, but not from religious belief itself.
This creates challenges for the church, but also for Polish identity, which has historically been linked to Catholicism, writes Katarzyna Skiba https://t.co/udWGzd0X7F
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) April 18, 2023
The Catholic church in Poland has faced a series of crises in recent years, in particular over revelations of child sexual abuse by members of the clergy and negligence in dealing with them by the church hierarchy.
The episcopate has also been accused of becoming too closely involved in politics, in particular through its support for a widely unpopular near-total ban on abortion that was introduced in 2021 and through its close relations with the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party.
A variety of surveys, including from the church itself, show that religious attendance and identification have been declining in Poland in recent years.
The proportion of people in Poland who are religious non-believers has risen to a record 14% while those who attend Sunday mass have fallen to a low of 34%.
But a large majority of Poles still identify as believers and Catholics https://t.co/2yqrLePAsw
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) May 23, 2024
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Main image credit: Przemysław Keler/KPRP
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.
