Church and State in Post-Communist Poland<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

by Andrzej Dominiczak, Polish Humanist Federation

 

In 2001, the IHEU held a Conference in Bratislava to evaluate the current status of non-denominational citizens and NGOs representing these groups in Central Europe. The Conference addressed humanist concerns in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary. The present article, which was presented as a paper at this Conference, is being reproduced in INTERNATIONAL HUMANIST NEWS as a mark of solidarity with our Polish humanist colleagues at a time when they are organising a debate on 25 October at the Polish Parliament on 'The Future of Europe – Human Rights and Freedoms in the Constitution of the European Union' (keynote speaker Babu Gogineni, Executive Director of IHEU). On 26 October, the EHF as joint organiser of the events in Warsaw will host a humanist platform on 'Co-existence of different life stances - Discrimination'.

 

Introduction

According to the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, "The relationship between the State and churches and other religious organisations shall be based on the principle of respect for their autonomy and the mutual independence of each in its own sphere, as well as on the principle of cooperation for the individual and the common good".  The truth, however, has little in common with these solemn declarations, particularly as regards the relationship with the Roman Catholic Church. In today's Poland there is no "mutual in- dependence" of State and Church. Only the autonomy and independence of the Church has been respected over the last decade, probably far beyond the standards observed in most democratic states. The Catholic Church in Poland has been to a large degree beyond any democratic or legal control. At the same time the Church has constantly and without any self-restraint violated the autonomy of the State, as this article will show. The Church has significantly reinforced its political and economic power since the collapse of the Communist regime, and today there is practically no public authority or other organisation that would dare to criticise or oppose its activities or aspirations. Even the media, which used to be critical in the beginning of the nineties, now condemn those who oppose the idea of turning Poland into a religious state.

 

However, this political and economic success has not been without significant cost. The fact that the Church is primarily seen as a political power has weakened its moral authority and lowered its social status. Polish religiosity has become even more selective and superficial. It has also resulted in a fall in the number of the faithful, particularly among teenagers. A survey conducted in 1999 by the Statistical Institute of the Catholic Church among students of secondary schools (15 to 18 years of age) shows that more than 21 per cent of young Poles are indifferent to religion, while only 10 per cent describe themselves as deeply religious. This phenomenon has been recognised by the Church authorities as so serious that they have decided to introduce evangelisation of the unfaithful into school curricula. One should be relieved, however. The authors of the Church's Committee for Dialog declare that they do not encourage the conversion of young people by force:  "Non-believers should be approached with love, respect and understanding - not only for tactical reasons [!]").

 

Another study, recently conducted by one of the highly respected public opinion research centres, and published by the quality weekly Polityka (Politics), gave an interesting picture of the religiosity of the Polish adult population, 93 per cent of which still declare that they are believers.  Yet only 69 per cent believe in resurrection and eternal life, and a mere 41 per cent in the existence of Hell. The survey reveals remarkable ignorance of the principal Catholic dogmas: when asked the names of the Holy Trinity, a common answer was The Father, Joseph and Mary. Likewise, there appears to be little influence of Catholic teaching on people's attitudes to contraception (accepted by three-quarters of the population), premarital sexual contact, and the legalisation of certain forms of euthanasia. Most young people do not accept the idea that there is no religion without the Church. According to the Catholic sociologist, the Reverend Wladyslaw Piwowarski from the Catholic University in Lublin: "Two thirds of Poles are in fact unaware heretics, who do not understand the content of Catholic faith."

 

How, then, if Polish religiosity is so superficial and social support for the Church so weak, has the clergy been able to establish and exert such all-pervading political influence? To answer this, we must outline the history of the first decade of the Polish democratic state; in particular, the relationship between the State and the Catholic Church with regard to human rights and freedoms in Poland.

 

Poland under Democracy

Many in the West, particularly in the United States, consider Poland as a praiseworthy example of the successful transformation from a centrally planned economy to a free market economy, and from an authoritarian Communist regime to democracy. In fact, Poland has been inexorably heading towards becoming a religious state.

 

This situation cannot be explained by traditional Polish religiosity: these developments have occurred against the will of a majority of our society. It is, however, supported by the new, so-called post- Solidarity political elite, which eagerly satisfies the political ambitions of the Catholic Church in return for its full political backing. Such political agitation commonly takes place during religious gatherings and in the growing number of the media owned or controlled by the Church. In 1997, this led to the electoral victory of the ultra-conservative coalition called the Electoral Action "Solidarity". Soon after their coming to power the newly elected authorities rewarded the Church by adopting several laws to its advantage and assuring the clergy that the future governmental policies would satisfy their economic, ideological and political aspirations in Poland and abroad. One should remember that, according to the present Pope, Poland should become a source of inspiration for the so-called "re- evangelisation of Europe", which would in reality lead to the Catholic Church regaining the status of the only re- pository of truth as regards worldview and social morality. Regardless of whether this vision with respect to Europe is realistic or not, Poland itself is being ardently adjusted to the requirements of this scenario.

 

The Control of Church over State

One of the important consequences of these aspirations is the large body of legislation that turns some aspects of Catholic doctrine into national laws and reinforces the position of the Church in social life. The first such legislation legalised religious instruction in public schools (initially introduced against the law) and ensured that catechism teachers are paid by the State which, however, has no say whatsoever as regards the content of such instruction. Another example of such legislative acts is the law enforcing respect for "Christian values" in television and radio programmes, which resulted in a practical ban on broadcasts that might not be accepted by the Church.

 

In 1996, at the demand of the Church, whose representatives took part in the work of the Constitutional Committee on equal terms with the members of parliament, the provision on the separation of Church and State was replaced with an enigmatic wording providing for their "mutual impartiality". Another constitutional provision obligated the government and parliament to regulate relations with the Church in an international law concluded with the Vatican, the so-called Concordat. The Concordat was finally ratified in 1998, in a manner and form which was the source of a heated controversy. This agreement sanctioned and extended privileges thus far obtained by the Church and in some cases provided for additional prerogatives. Numerous provisions of the Concordat violate constitutional guarantees of freedom and equality before the law. Moreover, since the agreement devolves certain powers to the Church it should, according to the Constitution, have been adopted by a two-thirds majority of votes. It was, however, ratified by a simple majority of votes in both chambers of Parliament.

 

Another example of the Church's unconstitutional role in Polish politics and public life is its influence on some verdicts of the Constitutional Tribunal, an institution established in order to decide independently on the conformity of laws with the Constitution. In 1997 we were provided with striking evidence of such influence: the Tribunal - clearly without any legal grounds - decided that the relatively liberal law on abortion was not in conformity with the Constitution and with the principles of the State governed by the rule of law. This verdict was used by the conservative majority in parliament to reintroduce the ban on abortion on social grounds.

 

The above examples show that the Church is treated by Polish authorities as a source of law and at the same time as an institution whose interests are above the law. There are numerous cases of the clergy violating laws with impunity: insults hurled on disobedient MPs, racist and anti-Semitic speeches, and infringements of financial regulations, even though public authorities diligently help to keep them from the knowledge of the general public. Institutions dealing with the administration of justice abstain from prosecuting in such cases and those few individuals who try to instigate legal proceedings against clergymen are punished by their superiors.

 

State authorities also provide increasingly generous assistance to the ideological expansion of the Catholic Church. They support a large number of religious publishing houses, grant almost unlimited presence of the clergy in the public media, sponsor the Pope's travels, activities of the Papal Theological Academy and theological seminaries. By openly declaring the Catholic identity of Poland and authenticating these declarations by symbolic acts (such as hanging the cross in the parliamentary plenary sittings room or organising a pilgrimage of MPs to the religious centre of Poland in Czestochowa), they contribute to the growth of religious fanaticism in Poland. This phenomenon can best be illustrated by the support granted to Catholic television and radio stations, even if they advocate anti-Semitism, religious fundamentalism, intolerance and xenophobic nationalism. The government's educational policy has also been partly shaped by the Church. Following its recommendations, the Minister of Education decided to withdraw sex education from schools. For the same reason, parliament rejected a proposal to remove the grades for religious instruction from school certificates (the presence of such grades violates a constitutional guarantee and contributes to discrimination of non- believers, thus exerting psychological pressure on them to participate in religious instruction). Similarly, the Minister of Defence has failed to respond to the complaints of soldiers who are forced to practise religion while serving their military duty.

 

Another important issue is the question of legal and illegal financial privileges of the Church and clergymen. Some of those privileges originate from Communist Poland, whose authorities tried to buy the support of the Church; a great majority of them, however, have been introduced after the political transformation .

 

Despite being a relatively wealthy social group, Polish clergy are encumbered with minimal income taxes, while their real earnings remain unknown. The Church has been granted numerous tax allowances, reductions and exemptions from customs duties for imported goods without proper control of the way such goods are used (many of these goods, particularly cars, are being sold in the open market for huge profits). The most extreme and socially noxious privilege is the Church's right to participate in the so-called "regulatory proceedings" where its claims for the restitution of property rights are decided. Such claims are often made for real property lost a long time ago (sometimes centuries ago) and of important public utilities (such as hospitals, schools, student houses, etc.). Such property is frequently returned to the Church by arbitrary decisions, issued either by individual state officials or by the so-called "Property Committee", one half of which is composed of state officials and the other half of representatives of the Episcopate. The committee's decisions are final - they are not subject to appeal to any higher authority, nor are they subject to any form of social control. This way of proceeding is in contradiction to the basic principles of the democratic state and the rule of law. In no other post-Communist country is the Church granted property in such a way and on such a grand scale. To our knowledge, for example, in the Czech Republic and in Hungary decisions with respect to each individual claim are made by the respective parliaments.

 

The Concordat has sanctioned and broadened this practice - incompatible with the Constitution - by giving the Church the opportunity to share in decisions about its financial relations with the State; all decisions concerning these relations are made by a joint commission appointed by the parties to this agreement, so no privileges of the Church can be revoked.

 

The strong position of the Catholic Church in Polish politics has also had adverse effects on members of sexual minorities. Recent opinion polls show that homosexuals are the least tolerated minority, even among young people. This attitude is being entrenched by prominent senior officials of the Catholic Church who have made numerous public statements in which they have voiced prejudiced and homophobic opinions by claiming that homosexuality is a form of moral deficiency or a disease.

 

The anathematic social attitudes reinforced or even produced by the Church have their counterpart in state legislation. Due in part to the Church's influence, the newly adopted Polish constitution, which came into force in 1997, fails to proscribe against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, even though a stipulation to this effect had been considered in an early draft. Furthermore, while the constitution explicitly defines marriage as the union of man and woman, Polish law fails to provide for any form of legalised partnership between persons of the same sex, thus penalising same- sex couples in areas like tax, pension schemes, and property inheritance. In practice, same-sex partners are also not allowed to adopt children. Efforts by homosexual citizens of Poland to influence the course of politics and to win public support for their causes are met with obstacles. In 1998, the Lambda Group in Warsaw was refused permission to hold a gay pride parade, in apparent deference to "family values" as propagated by the Church.

 

Policies Towards Women and the Family

It is in the area of women's rights, however, and especially with regard to violence against women, that the joint policy of Church and government is widely perceived to be most strikingly at odds with the standards of the rest of Europe. Women are seen by Polish authorities predominantly in the family context, as wives, minders of the sick and, above all, as reproductive units without individual freedoms and rights; policies affecting them are presented in the context of the family.

 

The government's approach has been based on the Pro-Family Policy Program, devised and developed by a group of ultra-conservative Catholic experts from The Electoral Action "Solidarity". Explicitly based on the Vatican Family Rights Charter, this document defines the family as a basic social unit and a natural re- lationship more fundamental than the State or community. According to the Program, no law may infringe on the inalienable rights of the family, the fundamental unit of Poland.

 

The real meaning of this vaguely phrased definition emerges when the goals of the programme are analysed. Its authors propose, inter alia, to introduce the in- stitution of separation (the substitute of a divorce based on Canon Law), ban abortion, enforce Canon Law marriages, restrict minority churches, withdraw sex education from schools, and censor the media, as well as grant family benefits and tax deductions to families with children, particularly those with many children.

 

The ultra-conservative Catholic model of the family promoted in the Program has no regard for the individual rights or freedoms of family members, as it ignores their needs and interests. The family is understood as a monolithic collective whose abstract interests, defined in practice by the Catholic Church, are considered superior to individual interests, particularly those of women.

 

Public statements made by its main proponents have reinforced the document's language. The most controversial of them was the previous Minister for Family Affairs, Kazimierz Kapera, the former head of the Catholic Families Movement, who was once dismissed from a ministerial position because of his offensive public declarations about the gay community. On numerous occasions, Kapera defined the institution of marriage as an unbreakable bond, which cannot be terminated in any circumstances. In a series of interviews, he expressed the opinion that abortion cannot be allowed, even in the case of a 12-year-old girl rape victim. The former minister provoked public outcry over his critique of the campaign against domestic violence. He said that "the problem [of violence against women] has been exaggerated and [that] such campaigns should not be supported, as they might dissuade young women from marrying".

 

The Program's formal language and the public declarations of ultra-conservative politicians became one of the most visible parts of governmental policy, particularly with regard to measures intended to curtail women's rights. The then Prime Minister (1997-2001), Jerzy Buzek, announced the importance of such pro- family policy in his statement in November 1997. Polish women didn't have to wait long for concrete steps to be taken to put the Program's provisions into practice. A programme to halt violence and work towards equal opportunities was suspended; governmental subsidies of contraceptives were scrapped; and in July 1998, a "Report on the Situation of Polish Families", presented as an objective analysis but in fact a form of propaganda promoting the traditional model of the family, was adopted by the Council of Ministers. The Report expressed concern over the divorce rate and claimed a close correlation between crime and increasing numbers of single-parent families. Domestic violence against women was regarded by the authors as an exaggerated problem, given an inappropriately high profile by the women's press, while the issues of child abuse and incest were ignored.

 

A section on the Vatican Family Rights Charter constitutes an integral part of the Report. Although the authors admit that the Charter is not a binding international document, they argue that it may be considered a draft proposal. However, even a basic analysis of the Report and the Charter leads unavoid- ably to the conclusion that the Vatican Family Charter is, in fact, treated as fundamental law and the real basis for Polish legislation and the government's family pro- gramme. Concurrently, the Report neglects to mention the 1995 Platform for Action adopted at the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, nor do they refer to the Polish government Program of Action on Behalf of Women 2000.

 

In 1999, a further document, the "Pro-family Policy of the State," in similar vein but concentrating more on demography (the need to encourage marriages and larger families) and family health, was adopted by the Council of Ministers. Identifying an economic factor in the decline of marriages and reduction in the number of children, it proposed financial incentives such as tax deductions and affordable housing programmes to reverse the trends. Once more, there was no mention of domestic violence. The long-term goal of this policy is clear: it promotes an authoritarian conservative model of society in general, and of the family in particular; a model according to which the family is seen as an unbreakable unit, superior to the individual dignity and freedom of its members.

 

The authors of the Program complain in its Introduction that international documents lack direct legal protection of the family and that the family itself is a notion not uniformly understood in the legislation of various European Union member states. Indeed, the Polish government does not try to disguise its discriminatory attitude to women and its critical opinion of EU policy promoting gender equality. Recently, at the 45th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, the representative of the Polish government refused to endorse the statement by Margareta Winberg, who spoke on behalf of the European Union and Associated States, calling on governments to ensure that women enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms.

 

The Church in the New Millennium

The first years of the new millennium have seen considerable reinforcement of the Church's political and economic position. New laws discriminating against non-believers have been adopted and the Church's privileges have been strengthened, often in striking contradiction with democratic principles and the laws of Poland. For example, in June 2001, the infamous law on radio and television was amended by introducing new provisions concerning the so-called "social broadcasters". Various social organisations, including churches, may now be granted a broadcasting licence, free of charge, if they meet certain conditions, including the requirement to respect Christian values. Such laws form a convenient basis for discriminatory practices. In May 2001, the media and various social bodies, including the Council of Ethics in the Media, called on the president of the State television channel to dismiss the Director of News because he referred to the Pope by his real name, Karol Wojtyla, in a business letter. Although he was not in the end dismissed, he was harshly reprimanded and forced to declare himself in the wrong. Since the beginning of this year the Church has continued to improve its economic situation, mostly on account of generous donations granted by local governments, mainly in the form of landed property or building lots, whose value often amounted to millions of Polish zlotys. A new commercial TV station, controlled by the Catholic Church, was to a large degree financed by the state- owned company, Polish Copper.

 

Despite the highly publicized efforts of Polish bishops to influence the results of the last parliamentary elections, held in September 2001, by calling on Catholics to vote for candidates defending "Christian values", the openly religious League of Polish Families received just 7.87 per cent of the vote, while the left-wing election coalition won over 41 per cent of votes and over 216 Seym seats. The Church's influence on the choices made by ordinary people is minimal, while it still exerts strong influence on the politicians and state authorities. Why? The answer is relatively simple. Polish democracy is still in a very early stage of development. Polish politicians do not understand that their primary obligation is to protect people's rights and freedoms, and - as regards the relationship, in a democracy, between State and Church - to protect the autonomy of the State, so that all can be equal, regardless of their religion or philosophical worldview.