Only 9% of young people in Poland view Catholic church positively, finds poll

Most Poles do not have a positive attitude towards the Catholic church, a survey has found. Among young people, only 9% see it positively.

The survey comes amid mass protests against a near-total ban on abortion, with much of the anger aimed in particular against the church. It also follows a series of revelations about child sex abuse by priests and alleged cover-ups by senior clergy.

The poll, conducted last week by IBRiS for the Rzeczpospolita daily, asked Poles “How would you assess your attitude towards the Catholic church in Poland?” Respondents were evenly split between positive (35%), neutral (31%) and negative (32%). Only 2% did not have an opinion.

However, among the youngest respondents (aged 18 to 29), only 9% had a positive view of the church, while 44% were neutral. Almost half of them, 47%, assess the church negatively.

“This is not particularly surprising,” Tomasz Terlikowski, a Catholic commentator, told Rzeczpospolita. “The church has been losing its authority for a long time.”

A poll in January found that the Catholic church had seen a larger decline in trust than any other major institution in Poland. Only 39.5% said that they trusted the church, 13 percentage points less than in the same survey two years earlier.

Last month, pollster CBOS reported that 49% of Poles have a positive view of the church, which was 8 percentage points lower than in March. A negative view was held by 41%, which was a 9 percentage point increase over the same period.

Earlier this month, amid the abortion protests, a poll by United Surveys for RMF FM and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna found that 66% of Poles regarded the Catholic church as playing a negative role in public life and only 27% saw it positively. Those aged under 40 were more likely to view it negatively.

Other surveys have also shown a particular decline in religiosity among young people. Pew Research Center last year found Poland to have the biggest decline in religiosity between the oldest and youngest generations.

According to data from Statistics Poland, a state agency, only 18% of those aged 16-25 and 17% of those aged 25-34 are strongly or moderately committed to their faith, compared to 51% of those aged over 75 and 41% of 55-64 year-olds.

This marks a significant change in Poland, a country where over 90% of the population are officially classified as Catholic and over 80% still call themselves believers.

Following last month’s ruling by the constitutional court that introduces a near-total ban on abortion, hundreds of thousands of Poles have taken to the streets to demonstrate against the decision. They are believed to be the largest protests in Poland since the fall of communism.

Participants have been disproportionately young, and many of the protests have been directed against the church in an unprecedented manner. In one widely shared video, a group of teenage girls confronted a priest outside his church in a way many would have found unimaginable in the past.

The church has noted such developments – which include a declining proportion of children attending Catholic catechism classes in schools – with concern.

The plenary meeting of the Polish Episcopal Conference (KEP) in August warned of a “systematic decline” in religiosity, especially among the young.

Earlier this month, the president of KEP, Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, said that the abortion protests are the result of young people being led astray by streaming services and social media, which “cultural Marxists” use to “promote homosexuality, hedonism and promiscuity”.

The decline in trust towards the church has also come amid a series of revelations about sex abuse by priests and alleged cover-ups by their superiors.

In the last month, the Vatican has permanently removed a Polish bishop accused of covering up abuse and launched an investigation into another. It also took disciplinary measures against a Polish cardinal himself accused of abuse.

Last week, an investigation broadcast on Polish television included a claims against Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, former secretary to Polish Pope John Paul II. Dziwisz was accused of ignoring reports of sex abuse in the church and taking money from those accused. He denies the claims.

In the new poll, taken after the investigation was aired on television, IBRiS asked respondents how they assess Cardinal Dziwisz. A majority, 58%, said they has a negative view of him, and only 20% had a positive opinion.

Main image credit: Jakub Porzycki / Agencja Gazeta

Daniel Tilles

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.