A Polish bishop has backed a protest against moves to curb state-funded religion classes in the country’s schools.
Bishop Wojciech Osial, chairman of the Polish bishops’ education commission, endorsed the “YES to religion in school” petition Aug. 1.
The campaign, launched by four Catholic weekly publications, is gathering signatures against the government’s plan to limit religion classes paid from the state budget to one hour a week, beginning Sept. 1, 2025.
Osial, the apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Łowicz in central Poland, said: “This initiative is part of a series of actions taken by the Church, catechists, and parents to express firm opposition to the unfair and unjust actions of the Ministry of National Education regarding school religion lessons.”
“I encourage parents and all those who care about the upbringing of children and young people in the spirit of Christian values to join the action and sign the protest addressed to the Minister of Education.”
Education minister Barbara Nowacka announced in June that she had commissioned the preparation of a draft regulation reducing religion classes from two hours a week to one.
Participation in the classes is voluntary and depends upon the wishes of parents or students themselves in high school classes.
Poland’s most recent census found that 71% of Poland’s roughly 38 million population identify as Catholic. The religion classes are largely, but not exclusively, Catholic catechism classes. Other religious groups recognized by the Polish state can also organize classes.
Catholic catechism classes in schools are governed by principles set out in the 1993 concordat between Poland and the Holy See. Catholic teachers of religion, the majority of whom are lay people, need authorization (a missio canonica) from their bishop.
In Polish cities such as Warsaw, Poznań, and Wrocław, around 60-70% of elementary school pupils and 15-30% of high school students attend the classes.
Nowacka, who took office last December following the defeat of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party in the October 2023 parliamentary election, acknowledged opposition to the government’s plans.
“I understand that they are protesting, for the reason that at the moment the Church profits from the fact that the state employs catechists, priests above all, and the Church does not feel obliged to provide them with the kind of services it should realistically,” she commented.
“I am aware that we are hitting the interest of a certain group.”
Nowacka said she understood parents’ desire for religion classes for their children.
“But really, one hour of religion is what the school can give, whereas if someone has greater needs, really the churches have been able to integrate for a thousand years, they have resources, they have potential,” she said.
She added: “I really don’t understand the fear of some of the episcopate that their faithful will drift away if they have [only] one hour of religion in schools.”
Shortly after she assumed office, Nowacka indicated that the new coalition government intended to make far-reaching changes to religion classes in public schools.
In addition to limiting the classes to an hour a week, she suggested that religion classes should be the first or last lessons of the day, and grades in religion should not count in the grade point average.
She argued that an hour a week was “completely sufficient,” given other demands on students.
In April, the education ministry unveiled a draft regulation altering how religion classes are organized in public kindergartens and schools.
Currently, religion classes must be organized separately for students of each class, if at least seven students opt in. The new regulations would allow classes to be combined in different ways.
Poland’s bishops formally expressed their opposition to the overhaul of religion classes in a June 12 statement at a plenary meeting in the capital, Warsaw.
They noted that religion is taught in public schools in 23 out of the 27 European Union countries. (The exceptions are France, Slovenia, Luxembourg, and Bulgaria.)
They also recalled that religious education was removed from Poland’s schools when communists came to power following the Second World War and reintroduced in 1991, after the fall of the Iron Curtain.
“We express our opposition to recent decisions of the Ministry of National Education relating to the organization of religious lessons at school,” the bishops said.
“We urge it to take into account the will of parents, the vast majority of whom send their children and teenagers to religious lessons. On the scale of our country as a whole, this is almost 80% of parents.”
“They have the right to religious instruction lessons on public school grounds, as it stems from fundamental human rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic of Poland and the concordat between the Holy See and the Republic of Poland.”
The bishops called on Catholic parents to “speak out boldly” on the issue, alongside Catholic media, religious movements, and communities.
The “YES to religion in school” campaign is organized by the Catholic weeklies Niedziela, Gość Niedzielny, Idziemy, and Przewodnik Katolicki.
The publications are encouraging Catholics to sign a letter to Barbara Nowacka describing the changes as “blatant discrimination against children and adolescents attending school religious lessons, their parents, and religious teachers.”
The letter notes that “so far, changes in the organization of religion classes at school have been introduced without the agreement between the Ministry and the Church, as required by law.”
“I demand that the government side reach an agreement with representatives of the Catholic Church,” says the text, which had almost 1,000 signatures by press time.
Religion classes are just one area of tension between the Catholic Church and the government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Others include a push to liberalize abortion laws and efforts to alter a system through which the government subsidizes religious associations recognized under Polish law, including the Church.
In July, Poland’s parliament rejected a bill that would have decriminalized the act of helping women obtain unlawful abortions up to the 12th week of pregnancy.
The bill was supported by Civic Platform, the largest party in the ruling coalition, but narrowly defeated after members of another element in the coalition, the Polish People’s Party, largely sided with the opposition.
Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, who is aligned with the Law and Justice party, had said he would veto the bill. His second and final term as president will end by May 2025.
Three other bills seeking to liberalize abortion laws are currently being considered by a parliamentary committee.
Abortion is legal in Poland only when there is a risk to the mother’s life and in cases of rape or incest.
It was previously also legal in cases of severe and irreversible disability or a life-threatening incurable disease. But Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal ruled in October 2020 that the provision was unconstitutional.
That judgment sparked mass protests in cities across Poland, directed principally at the Law and Justice party, which then led the country.
Protesters also targeted the Catholic Church, which welcomed the ruling, disrupting Masses, daubing graffiti on Church property, and vandalizing statues of the Polish pope St. John Paul II.
Recently released figures showed that 425 legal abortions were performed in Poland in 2023, up from 161 in 2022.
