Contrasting Statistics Show Both Secularization and Tradition in Poland
There was a decrease in religious practice and an increase in weddings and baptisms in 2016, according to the latest report from the Institute for Catholic Church Statistics in Poland, available on the website of the Polish episcopate.
36.7% of the Polish population goes to Mass every Sunday: religious practice in 2016 dropped by over 3% compared to the year 2015. Poland has 25,000 diocesan priests for a population of 38.5 million – by way of comparison, France has 11,908 diocesan priests for a population of over 67 million.
The report also shows that in 2016 there were 374,300 baptisms, which is 5,000 more than the year before. There was also an increase in weddings: 138,300 people got married in religious ceremonies, which is 2,000 more than in 2015.
Fr. Wojciech Sadlon SAC, director of the Institute for Catholic Church Statistics in Poland, commented on this data: “You can see that people become less and less open to the spiritual sphere, although almost all Poles feel attached to Catholicism. This is shown by the relative stability in the last five years.”
In Poland, the Society of St. Pius X is present in Warsaw, Gdansk, Bajerze and Krakow.
See: Website of the SSPX in Poland
Sources: VaticanNews / eglise.catholique.fr / episkopat.pl / FSSPX.News – 1/18/2018
