Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Czestochowa (Agenzia Fides) – The leading Catholic magazine in Poland, “Niedzela,” with headquarters in Czestochowa, has recently published a survey on the importance of the faith and the defense of the Church's teaching among Polish Catholics, in the public sector and in daily life. The survey was performed by the Institute for Catholic Church Statistics, under the direction of Father Witold Zdaniewicz, for “Niedzela.” According to the results of the survey, which were sent to Agenzia Fides, Catholics in Poland find the issue of the faith and the moral question that the Church poses, of great importance and the faith is not something relegated to the private sphere, but rather, it has a public dimension.
The sociologists of from the Institute for Statistics posed three main questions in interviewing Polish Catholics regarding: how they present the Church's teaching on abortion, how they present the Church's teaching on the question of in vitro fertilization, and how they present the issue of restitution of Church goods that were confiscated by the State during the communist regime.
64.9% of those interviewed declare that they know the argument and the Church's teaching on abortion. 28.4% said that they do not know how to explain the Church's teaching on abortion in the public debate and daily life. 42.5% said they know the Church's position on the question of in vitro fertilization. 43.4% do not know how to explain the Church's arguments on the issue. On the third question of Church goods confiscated by the communist regime, 53.5% of Polish Catholics do not know how to defend the Church's position in the public debate. “The majority of Catholics in Poland say, as the results of Niedzela's survey shows, that the faith is important in public life and that it is not only part of private practice,” Fr. Pawel Rozpiatkowski told Fides. (MF/SL) (Agenzia Fides 6/3/2009)
