Abstract
From the beginning of their association in the tenth century, the Roman Catholic Church and the Polish state have experienced an intimate and complex relationship. The Church served as the focal point for the continuance of Polish national and political, as well as spiritual and cultural, life after the state was threatened and finally destroyed in the eighteenth century. The re-emergence of an independent Poland in 1918 provided the Church with new opportunities for expanding its influence over Polish life, and its presence in Poland became especially pervasive between world wars. Accordingly, in this period the relations between the Church and the Polish state must be viewed on two levels, one representing the formal, official institutions of government and politics and the other concerned with the informal, more subtle and less evident ways in which Church and state interacted. Since the attitudes and practices developed in the interwar years exerted a major influence on Church-state relations in Poland after 1945, an understanding of this earlier period is essential to an appreciation of the situation in People’s Poland.
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References
Konstytucja Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej. Ustawa z dnia 17 marca 1921 r. Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1921. All references to the 1921 constitution are drawn from this edition.
Samples of Catholic response to the constitution are the two press articles by clerical publicists: Rev. Jan Urban, ‘Nasza konstytucja a program katolicki’, Przeglqd Powszechny (1921), no. 149/150, pp. 242–43, and Rev. Jan Pawelski, ‘Katolicyzm religią państwową w Polsce’, ibid. (1937), no. 213, pp. 69–70.
Adam Vetulani, ‘Dążenia powojennej polityki konkordatowej’, Przegląd Powszechny (1935), no. 207, p. 37.
Rev. Jan Urban, ‘Jakim winien być konkordat?’, ibid. (1921), no. 151/152, pp. 360–61.
Full text printed asKonkordat Polski z Stolicą Apostolską. Lwów: Liga Katolicka dla Archidiecezji Lwowskiej, 1925.
For examples of highly favorable Catholic comment on the concordat, see especially Rev. Boleslaw Wilanowski, Ustepstwa ze strony Kościola na rzecz Państwa, poczynione w konkordacie z 10 lutego 1925. Wilno: Księgarnia św. Wojciecha, 1927; Stosunek Kościola do Państwa w świetle innych konkordatów. Wilno: Księgarnia św. Wojciecha, 1930; and Leon Halban, Konkordat zawarty między Rzecząpospolitą Polską a Stolicą Apostolską. Warsaw:Księży Jezuitów, 1925.
Miesięcznik Kościelny (1935), no.1, p. 5.
The more determined anti-Sanacja opposition comments came in such Catholic publications asGazeta Kościelna (1935), no. 18, p. 1, andPrzewodnik Katolicki (1935), no. 14, pp. 1–3. See also the pastoral letter of the Polish Primate issued in summer 1935 — August Hlond, Listy pasterskie. Poznan: Naczelny Instytut Akcji Katolickiej, 1936, pp. 164–65. On the other hand, Catholic sentiments in favor of the document were voiced in such youth-oriented publications asMloda Polka (1935), no. 5, p.1.
Przegląd Spoleczny (1935), no. 8/9, p. 329.
Maly Dziennik, March 21, 1937.
For the Falanga program, see the publication of its leader, Boleslaw Piasecki, Prezelom narodowy. Zarys programu narodoworadykalnego. Warsaw: Obóz Narodow-RadylalnyFalanga, 1937.
For a detailed discussion of Church-state relations in Poland after 1935, see the article by Edward D. Wynot, Jr., ‘The Catholic Church and the Polish State, 1935–1939’, Journal of Church and State,15 (1973), no. 2, pp. 223–40.
For developments in this period, see Edward D. Wynot, Jr., Polish Politics in Transition: The Camp of National Unity and the Struggle for Power, 1935–1939, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1974.
Dziennik Ustaw Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej (hereafter cited asDURP)z 1927 r., no. 1, poz. 9, andOrzecnictwo sadów polskich, VI, 1927, p. 345, poz. 292.
The Church opposed this bitterly as being in violation of the concordat. See Rev. Stanislaw Lukomski, Konkordat zawarty dnia 10 lutego 1925 roku międzyStolicą Apostolską a Rzecząpospolitą Polską. lomza: n.p., 1934, pp. 372–73.
Ibid., pp. 351–53, DURP z 1932 r., no. 38, poz. 389. For Catholic reaction, seePrzegląd Powszechny (1932), no. 193, p. 396.
Dziennik Ustaw Ministerstwa Wyznań Religijnych i Oświecenia Publicznego, 24/IV, 1936.
See the detailed discussion of this state concession to the Church and how it affected Catholic organizations in Rev. Stanislaw Sprusiński and Wladyslaw Deptula, Podręcznik organizacyjny oddzialu KSM, Warsaw: Katolickie Stowarzyszenia Mlodzieżowe, 1937, pp. 235–39.
For both public and confidential discussions of the Church’s role in killing these bills, seeGazeta Warszawska (August 5,1931) andPrzeglqd Powszechny (1932), no. 193, pp. 118–19, plus the unpublished memoranda written by Franciszek Potocki, a leading official in the Ministry of Cults and Public Education. The two of particular interest and relevance are the undated studyProjekt prawa malzeńskiego, and hisNotatka z konferencji z dnia 16 listopada 1932 w Ministerstwie Spraw Wewnętrznych w sprawie projektu ustawy zwieniającej niektóre postanowienia o rejestracji stanu cywilnego; bothare deposited in the Archiwum Akt Nowych in Warsaw.
For details on Polish-Ukrainian tensions during this period, see Edward D. Wynot, Jr., ‘The Ukrainians and the Polish Regime, 1936–1939’, The Ukrainian Historian 7, (1970), no. 4, pp. 44–60.
This practice is considered extensively in Henryk Światkowski’sWyznania religijne w Polsce, vol. 1, Warsaw: Towarzystwo Naukowe Warszawskie, 1937, p. 90. Budgetprojects for the Ministry of Cults and Public Education, housed in that ministry’scollection in the Archiwum Akt Nowych (file 148, folios VIII, XI) offer the followingprecise sums of government funds appropriated for this purpose: 20,052,550zloty forboth 1935/36 and 1937/38, and 20,407,052zloty for 1939/40. During this period, theapproximate value of onezloty was U.S. $.20.
For a discussion of Church involvement in the Institute’s activities, see Wieslaw Mystek, Kościól katolickie w Polsce w latach 1918–1939, Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1966, pp. 558–63. While this book contains much valuable factual material, it is presented with a definite ideological bias.
For samples of the Church’s anti-Communist propagandizing, see especially the following contemporary publications:Bolszewizm. Praca zbiorowa, Lublin: Drukarnia Narodowa Towarzystwa Wiedzy Chrzescijańskiej, 1938;Chrystianizm wobec niewiary i ateizmu, Warsaw: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1935;List paster ski ks. Adolfa Szelazka, biskupa luckiego, o zwalczaniu niewiary, Luck: Drukarnia Kurii Biskupiej, 1935; Mieczyslaw Skrudlik, Bezbożnictwo w Polsce, Katowice: Księgarnia i Drukarnia Katolickie, 1935; Antonio Starodworski, Katolicyzm a komunizm, Warsaw: Instytut Naukowy Badania Komunizmu, 1936; and the directives of the militantly nationalist Bishop of Katowice, Stanislaw Adamski, List pasterski o czynnym udziale katolików w walce z bezbożnictwem, Katowice: Księgarnia i Drukarnia Katolickie, 1937.
As noted in a memorandum prepared by an official in the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs dated October 10,1936 — Archiwum Akt Nowych, Ministerstwo Spraw Zagraniczych, PIW 122, t. 195.
Of the many studies of theCatholic Action movement in Poland, see especially those of Bishop Stanislaw Adamski, Podstawy pracy stowarzyszeń Akcji Katolickiej, Poznan: Naczelny Instytut Akcji Katolickiej, 1937, and Herbert Bednorz, Udzial Akcji Katolickiej w rozwiązaniu kwestii spolecznej, Poznan: Naczelny Instytut Akcji Katolickiej, 1939.
Andrzej Mytkowicz, Akcja Katolicka u podstaw i wpraktyce, Lwów: Liga Katolicka dla Archidiecezji Lwowskiej, 1929, p. 39. Emphasis in the original.
Glos Narodu, May 19, 1937. Mussolini’s regime faced a similar problem in dealing with the ItalianCatholic Action movement. See Giuseppe Dalla Torre, Azione Catolica e Fascismo, Rome: A.V.E., 1945, and Daniel A. Binchy, Church and State in Fascistnb Italy, Oxford: At the University Press, 1941.
Maly Dziennik, April 27, 1938.
Z. Anthony Kruszewski, The Oder-Neisse Boundary and Poland’s Modernization, New York: Praeger, 1972, pp. 159–65.
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Wynot, E.D. (1976). Reluctant Bedfellows: The Catholic Church and the Polish State, 1918–1939. In: De George, R.T., Scanlan, J.P. (eds) Marxism and Religion in Eastern Europe. Sovietica, vol 36. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-1870-8_5
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