Notes and Queries: Polish Episcopalians in Philadelphia (original) (raw)

2018, The Historiographer

The Diocese of Pennsylvania sponsored a robust mission among Polish- speaking persons from 1916 to 1969. These congregations were distinct from the two major independent Polish churches outside of the Roman Catholic Church: the Polish Old Catholic Church in America, led by Anthony Kozlowski (1857-1905), and the better-known Polish National Catholic Church, led by Francis Hodur (1866-1953). After the merger of the two groups, the Episcopal Church and the Polish National Catholic Church entered into full communion.

The Roman Catholic Church in Poland as both Dominant and Minority Group

The Roman Catholic Church is the biggest religious organization in Poland that has been closely connected both with state and culture for over one thousand years. A very significant fact is that some 93-94% Poles declare their affiliation to the Catholic Church. At the turn of the 1980s, the public opinion surveys showed that positive estimation of the Church's activity on the public arena of Polish society was at its zenith. Positive response reached the level of more than 90% with only several per cent of opposite opinion. In the beginning of 1996 only about 50% of respondents the surveyed Poles positively evaluated the Church's public activities, and the group of people with the reverse opinion was nearly as numerous as the first one. It is not enough, I think, to interpret this situation within the scope proposed by the perspective of the 'secularizational paradigm:' the surveys show increase of the percentage of people declaring themselves as believers. What is, I think, more interesting, are the changes observed within the relations between the RCC in Poland and the state institutions. [The Roman Catholic Church in Poland as both Dominant and Minority Group, /in:/, Janusz Mucha (ed.), Dominant Culture as a Foreign Culture. Dominant Groups in The Eyes of Minorities, East European Monographs and Columbia University Press, New York 1999, pp. 227-242.]

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 focusing 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)

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