An Open Issue of Legitimacy: The State and the Church in Poland

Since the founding of the Communist state in Poland, the growth of the institutionalized basis of Catholicism there has accelerated. This trend obviously reflects a continuing growth in the social base of support for Catholicism. This article presents church-state relations in terms of confrontation between the church and Communist rule, and it postulates that the Polish Roman Catholic Church has been transformed in the course of its coexistence with Communist rule and resembles very little the Catholic Church of the prewar period. The Roman Catholic Church serves as an alternative legitimate system within Communist Poland. It is an authority system that is not constitutionally recognized, but in real terms it functions as if it were and coexists with the Communist authorities. Moreover, in the eyes of the general public, the role of the Polish church is conditional upon the performance of the Communist regime. The church's authority extends beyond the spiritual and moral domain and directly enters politics and, more recently, the social and cultural life of local communities.