How the Polish Roman Catholic Church’s Representatives Explain Decline of the Positive Estimations of the Church’s Public Activities
How the Polish Roman Catholic Church’s Representatives Explain Decline of the Positive Estimations of the Church’s Public Activities

Summary/Abstract: How the Polish Roman Catholic Church’s Representatives Explain Decline of the Positive Estimations of the Church’s Public Activities. The main purpose of the article is to draw readers’ attention to some possible ways of interpreting the decline of positive estimations of Polish Roman Catholic Church’s public activities within last dozen or so years. The proposed point of view of analysis refers to ‘emic-view’ perspective used in social sciences (especially within cultural anthropology) to illustrate the standpoints of ‘inner-actors’ of social actions. The Polish Church is one of the key powers on the public and political scene in Poland. The context of political transformation in Poland and Church’s contribution in building during the communist regime the ‘underground civil society’ has given to the Church possibility to became one of the main players on the political scene and an important component of the official culture. But the wide, social support for Church’s public activities in the mid 1990s radically changed. This situation called for the explanations. A lot of Polish social scientists have undertaken adequate surveys and clarifications. This article however is focussing on opinions and statements of some key Polish Roman Catholic Church’s representatives (both secular persons and bishops) explaining this fundamental change. Sociológia 2003 Vol 35 (No. 6: 533-556)

• Details
• Contents