W co i jak wierzą katolicy w Polsce (analiza socjologiczna)
What and How do Catholics in Poland Believe? (A Sociological Analysis)

Summary/Abstract: The processes of secularization and pluralization of religious awareness in the Polish society are not as advanced as in the Western countries. The author discusses selected elements of the Catholic Credo and their acceptance in the Polish Catholics’ awareness, with special attention paid to youth circles. First the Catholics’ general attitude to the truths of religion given by the Church to be believed is shown, and next acceptance of particular dogmas in the awareness of believers is analyzed. Both results of sociological research and public opinion polls are quoted. The latter ones are based on large samples and not only are significant as far as their very subject is concerned, but also they are statistically important. In the light of the existing empirical materials, the processes of de-institutionalization of Church religiousness and formation of the so-called ‘selective religiousness’ may be fairly precisely described. We are still rather helpless in describing the quantitative aspects of the phenomenon of privatization of religion in the national scale (so-called religiousness without the Church). More subtle methods and research techniques are necessary for studying the extra-Church religiousness, especially the privatized or individualized types of it, than the ones that have been used by empirical sociology of religion in Poland up till now. Results of sociological research allow only such interpretations, according to which in the post-war Poland selectiveness with respect to the Catholic truths of the faith, a lack of acceptance for many values and moral norms propagated by the Church, and recently – an intensified criticism towards the Church as an institution and questioning the authority of religiousecclesiastic institutions can be seen. The range of selective attitude towards religion in the Polish society may be estimated, but this is not tantamount to evaluating the processes of privatization of religion. The index of selective attitudes towards particular Catholic dogmas probably ranges in Poland from about a dozen to 30-40%.

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