WARSAW (Reuters) – Katarzyna Lipka is no longer Catholic, and she says that is a political statement.
Katarzyna Lipka, 35, poses during an interview with Reuters at her home in Warsaw, Poland December 6, 2020. Picture taken December 6, 2020. Poster reads “No injunction no prohibition free choice” REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
Like most Poles, the 35-year-old has marked life’s milestones in the Church, a beacon of freedom in Communist times. Also like many, she’d been drifting away. In November, after the country’s courts decreed a clampdown on abortion that the bishops had lobbied for, she filed papers to cut loose.
“I used to think being passive was enough – I just didn’t take part,” Lipka told Reuters, curled up in an armchair in her apartment. “But I decided to speak up.”
For Lipka, abortion is only part of the problem. Her main concern is one many Poles, particularly young people on social media, often complain of: The Church’s increasing reach into other areas of life.
“I want – and I think all those who are leaving the Church now want – to voice our objection to what is happening now. To influence politics, our rights,” she said, adding that the Church was being allowed to have too much influence in areas such as politics, state spending and education.
Young adults in many countries are becoming less religious, according to research by the Pew Center. In Poland, a growing number of its 32 million Catholics are turning away. In 1989 when Communist rule ended, nearly 90% of Poles approved of the Church, according to the state-affiliated CBOS opinion poll. That figure is now 41% – the lowest since 1993.
The relationship between Church and state in Poland is governed by an agreement signed by Warsaw and the Holy See from 1993 that says they are independent and autonomous.
In reality, Poles see an increasingly explicit connection.
For example, priests have displayed election posters on parish property or discussed elections during mass – almost always in favour of the governing party – in more than 140 cases over the last five years, according to a Reuters tally of archived local media reports. During that time Poland has held five elections.
“What I don’t like in the Church is that it turns places of worship into a political bazaar, where my rights are being traded,” Lipka said.
The Polish Bishops’ Conference, which represents the Church in the country, declined to comment on the role of the clergy in political campaigning.
The government said it remained impartial towards religious belief and protected freedom of religion. “The relationship between the state and the Church as well as other religious organisations is based on respecting their autonomy and mutual independence … as well as cooperation for the common good,” it said in an emailed statement.
APOSTASY
In October, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal ruled that women should be prohibited from aborting a foetus with abnormalities, a ruling the government enforced on Jan. 27. About 1,000 pregnancies have been terminated legally each year in Poland, most due to foetal problems.
The Church considers all abortion to be murder. It says it was not involved in the court decision and government officials also told Reuters the Church had not influenced it. But in mass protests that followed, tens of thousands of people blocked roads and city centres carrying banners with slogans like “Get your rosaries off my ovaries.”
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Church officials stopped collating data on defections in 2010 so there is no nationwide total. In Warsaw, more people filed to quit last November than in all of 2019. The 577 acts of apostasy – the formal process of leaving the Church – booked between January and mid-December were nearly double the 2019 figure.
After the abortion ruling, Polish Google searches for ‘apostasy’ jumped to their highest since counting began in 2004. Thousands signed up for Facebook pages advising the documents needed, which include recent proof of baptism obtained from the parish where the ceremony took place. A website offering documentation, www.apostazja.eu, has had more than 30,000 downloads, its founder says.
“Whatever the reason, this is dramatic,” archbishop Grzegorz Rys, one of the most senior clerics in Poland, told Reuters.
Given the scale of revolt, he believes many are quitting in protest at what they see as increasingly tight bonds between the Church and the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party. The party’s ratings in most opinion polls have slipped to around 30% from more than 40% last August.
“SPECIAL MERITS”
The Catholic Church is at Poland’s core. According to Church data, 88% of children attend catechism classes in state-run schools.
In the 1980s, the Church was a voice of freedom: Pope John Paul II earned iconic status for inspiring people to stand up against Communist rule. Parish priests sheltered anti-government activists and helped distribute food and underground newspapers.
After Communism fell, the clergy pushed for a return to conservative Catholic values and in 1993, when Poland introduced new curbs on abortion, Church approval ratings fell below 40%. They have since recovered but never above 75%.
Over the next few years, as Poland introduced market reforms and joined the European Union, poorer, less educated voters felt left behind – a trend PiS promised to reverse when it came to power in 2015.
The party, whose strongest support is among older, rural voters, has spent millions of euros on Church-run projects, government documents show. PiS has overhauled a number of institutions, including the Constitutional Court, in reforms that the European Union says have increased political influence on the legal system. PiS disputes that.
The party sees the Church and Polish national identity as one. Ryszard Czarnecki, a senior lawmaker for PiS, says that while the party and the clergy should be seen as independent, the Church’s role in “preserving national identity” is undeniable.
“Poland has its specificity and the Church has its special merits here,” he told Reuters.
MORAL TEACHINGS
For PiS, the Church is a repository of Poland’s moral teaching: “The only alternative … is nihilism,” it said in a 2019 election campaign programme.
Public TV, run by a former PiS politician, runs nearly nine hours of Catholic programming a week, including church service broadcasts.
Church symbolism reaches deep into Poland’s political life. In 2015, a group of lawmakers from across the political spectrum placed a vial of blood from the late John Paul II – born in Poland and declared a saint in 2014 – in the chapel of the House of Parliament.
Last December, parliament added another relic – a strand of beard hair purportedly belonging to a monk killed in a Nazi German concentration camp. The monk, Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe, was canonized in 1982 for volunteering to die in place of another prisoner.
Elzbieta Witek, the PiS-appointed parliament speaker, ceremonially received the relic for the house. She declined to comment for this story.
PiS fuses piety and nationalism to the point where a central banker nominated and chosen by the party has published his views on moral topics.
Eryk Lon wrote a piece about interest rates in 2019 in which he urged the faithful to pray for the “evil spirit of cosmopolitanism” to be eradicated from universities, particularly from business schools. He did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Same-sex marriage is illegal in Poland and senior Church officials have supported a government crackdown on LGBT rights. One archbishop, Marek Jedraszewski, warned in 2019 against a “rainbow plague” spreading through the nation. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Lipka feels it is inappropriate to hold up the Church as a moral beacon. She said she was particularly repulsed by a report from the Vatican in November that said John Paul II had promoted ex-U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick despite rumours of his sexual misconduct. McCarrick has declined to comment on the report.
“AFRAID OF THE NEW”
Sebastian Duda, a theologian and a Catholic journalist, says Poland’s court ruling on abortion brought to light how far faith has eroded – a trend that he thinks has accelerated because of “the evident marriage between PiS and the Church,” which he said is unacceptable for many.
Some priests, such as Pawel Batory from the southern city of Rzeszow, a PiS heartland, say it’s time for the clergy to retreat from politics.
Batory, who was among more than 150 priests and nuns who issued a public appeal in October for more separation of Church and State, complains about election campaigning in places of worship.
Lipka says she believes popular opinion in the country as a whole is slowly turning away from conservative Catholicism.
Even her mother, a devout Catholic, agrees with some of her reasoning, she said, but worries about what funeral rites her daughter can expect.
“My mother doesn’t know any funerals other than Catholic ones,” said Lipka. “And she is afraid of the new.”
Pawel Florkiewicz, Anna Koper and Anna WLodarczak-Semczuk in Warsaw and Philip Pullella in Rome; Edited by Sara Ledwith
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
