Talk:Catholic Church in Poland

Untitled

Something is wrong with the map: 15 is Torun, and 13 is Bydgoszcz bishoprick; and 15 should be colored in green, and 13 in violet.

Thanks for noticing the error. I've corrected it. – Kpalion (talk) 6 July 2005 22:26 (UTC)

Someone is wanting the article to refer to "the times of foreign oppression". I changed this to "the socialist period" to be more NPOV, but the user says the former phrase is necessary to encompass previous periods in Polish history. Well, I don't know what formula is best to use, but I do know that classifying the socialist period as a "time of foreign oppression" violates NPOV. If anyone can come up with a better way to characterize things, feel free. Everyking 19:45, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Latin

The Latin words are adjective forms, and not really direct translations of the names of the cities... AnonMoos (talk) 13:06, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Religion in Poland

CIA Fact book shows:

Roman Catholic 89.8% (about 75% practicing)

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/pl.html

--Krzyzowiec (talk) 01:35, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Fee for marriage?

Should we then add "in violation of canon law 848 which states that "The minister is to seek nothing for the administration of the sacraments beyond the offerings defined by competent authority, always taking care that the needy are not deprived of the assistance of the sacraments because of poverty." from http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P2T.HTM. Student7 (talk) 20:16, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Requested move 2 October 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Procedural close per WP:MULTI. Follow-up instead at Talk:Roman Catholicism in Armenia#Requested move 2 October 2016. (non-admin closure) — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 00:37, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

---

Roman Catholicism in Poland → Catholic Church in Poland – In consistancy with other equivalent articles, including Catholic Church, Catholic Church in England and Wales, Catholic Church in the United States, etc. Chicbyaccident (talk) 14:11, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

• Keep Why should this be different from the 163 other articles in the Category:Roman Catholic Church by country? Laurel Lodged (talk) 17:08, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Roman Catholicism in Armenia which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 00:46, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Catholic Church naming conventions RfC

There is currently an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Catholic Church)#RfC: should this page be made a naming convention that may be of interest. Chicbyaccident (talk) 10:00, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Apostasy? Fake news.

I disbelieve the veracity of reports of an "apostasy procedure" being approved by the Polish Church, for two main reasons:

1. Per Omnium in mentem, canon law no longer recognizes "acts of formal defection" which is what this is by another name.
2. It would be a huge violation of canon law and the baptized person's rights to remove them or strike them from the baptismal register. Other bishops have been asked for this and rightly refused, because this is a legal record of a past event that happened, and cannot be stricken under any circumstance.

So I question the reliability of these sources that have been presented for this procedure. Elizium23 (talk) 22:20, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Not being being able to remove oneself from baptismal register is against the baptized person’s rights. Unfortunately it’s still the case in Poland, and many other countries. Calling the register a “legal record” is blatantly false; it’s similar to company’s databases, as opposed to legal records, which are, well, legal.

Still, that’s the official procedure for apostasy provided by the polish church. It does not result in removing oneself from church registers, though. Trasz (talk) 23:58, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Actually sacramental records are very truly legal records in every sense of the phrase. Can. 535 §1 In each parish there are to be parochial registers, that is, of baptisms, of marriages and of deaths, and any other registers prescribed by the Episcopal Conference or by the diocesan Bishop. The parish priest is to ensure that entries are accurately made and that the registers are carefully preserved. they are prescribed by law and kept according to law and it would be illegal to strike one's name from a baptismal register and I have never seen a civil law against this, but it would be safely ignored. It would be a violation of the baptized person's rights to be stricken from a register, and the Church (as of 2009) no longer recognizes any method for "formal defection" in her laws. Elizium23 (talk) 00:15, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

You have not proved this is a procedure provided "by the Polish Church" only by a (fake) news site and a highly motivated anti-Church "how-to" apostasy site. Elizium23 (talk) 00:16, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Legal records are things that are mandated by law, not by canon law. Your idea that somehow granting someone their rights would be a violation of their rights is obviously absurd, although I suspect I don't want to further discuss your rationale there.

The main problem here, though, is that you're somehow mistaking apostasy for striking someone from the register. Catholic Church does have the official procedure for apostasy, which is described in the article; it does not, however, result in removing anyone from the register, or even no longer counting them as Church's members. It's purely symbolic. Sources - including official Church publications - are easy to find, although I agree it would be useful to link them here. Trasz (talk) 00:39, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

According to what is written there now, it does involve that! Are you saying that you do not stand by what is written at this point in the article and it does not conform to what the Polish-language sources say? Elizium23 (talk) 01:21, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Elizium23 wrote: I disbelieve the veracity of reports of an "apostasy procedure" being approved by the Polish Church. Please check out the original uchwała nr 20/370/2015 of 7 October 2015 by the Episcopal Conference of Poland. Unfortunately, the pdf file is a scan - you will not be able to easily convert it to text and pass it through an automatic translator. Boud (talk) 02:44, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Elizium23 - the fact that the current Polish apostasy rules of the Catholic Church refuse to fully remove a former member's private data (such as a baptism record) from its database(s) is a violation of European privacy law - the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). A possible result of the current revolutionary atmosphere could be that the Church loses political power and is forced to satisfy European privacy law, and to pay huge fines (up to 5% of its revenue) for violations of the GDPR. In any case, please read the uchwała (formal decision of an organised body) or find someone Polish-speaking who can translate it for you. Boud (talk) 03:02, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Boud, as the sources have been translated for me, this is an "act of formal defection" which the Episcopal Conference has made a concession for in their law. "Apostasy" is the name of a particular sin and crime that is excommunicable, but the act in question is not an act of apostasy, according to the reliable sources, it is an act of formal defection from the Church, which has precedent. Elizium23 (talk) 01:30, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

"Apostasy" and "formal defection" in this context are two words for the exact same thing.Trasz (talk) 01:37, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Let's see:

• Apostasy: the formal disaffiliation from, abandonment of, or renunciation of a religion by a person.
• wikt:apostasy: 2. Specifically, the renunciation of one's religion or faith.
• pl:Apostazja (Polish context): porzucenie wiary religijnej lub religii rejecting religious faith or religion ... Współcześnie apostazja rozumiana jest jako świadome, dobrowolne i publiczne wyrzeczenie się kontaktu z Kościołem. Currently apostasy is understood as the conscious, freely chosen, publicly cutting off contact with the Church.

None of these mention the internal concepts of sin within a religion; nothing about a crime in the ordinary sense of state systems of justice with laws, judicial institutions, police and prisons. The internal definitions within a particular religion do not override the widely accepted definitions. So I wouldn't say that apostasy and formal defection are exactly the same, but they're close enough. The term apostasy procedure seems enough for disambiguation - it's a formalisation of apostasy, which is the closest thing in Poland to forcing the Catholic Church to obey European privacy law and freedom-of-religion law. Boud (talk) 01:53, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Boud, "apostasy" to the Catholic Church is a sin, and a crime punishable by excommunication. "Formal defection" is a procedure as described in the Episcopal Conference source here. Elizium23 (talk) 20:12, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

I would be surprised if either the Catholic Church or Islamic imams or Jewish rabbis or Hindu priests got to override the generally accepted meanings of the word apostasy in the English language in en.Wikipedia. If you have a precise reference, it would seem justified to me to add a comment that the Catholic Church disagrees with the widespread usage of the word apostasy to refer to the apostasy procedure. In Poland apostazja is currently being very widely used - private info includes reports of whole families starting the procedure now and calling it ,,apostazja", so the usage in Polish appears to be similar to English. Boud (talk) 20:25, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Boud, it is not that the Catholic Church disagrees, it is just that the Catholic Church has precise terminology about these things and simply chooses to use her precise terminology while Europeans choose to colloquially use a term that has other connotations. It is largely about being sensationalistic that the media has taken the term "apostasy" and run with it. Nobody cares about being precise. Elizium23 (talk) 20:38, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

There's nothing imprecise in the term "apostasy"; the "formal defection" is just newspeak, and has no place outside of Church documents. Also, please note that your idea of "apostasy being a sin and a crime" is obviously false: after apostasy you're no longer a member of Catholic Church, thus no "sins" nor "excommunication" apply to you. Trasz (talk) 20:55, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Trasz, that shows how poorly you understand the process, because the person remains a member with a baptismal record; nobody can ever 'cease to be a member' of the Catholic Church, and sins apply to everyone, regardless of membership. A formally defected person could still be excommunicated. Elizium23 (talk) 21:08, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

This is obviously false - after apostasy you are no longer a member of the Church; it's what's guaranteed by law in every civilised country. The church obviously claims otherwise, but it's just a lie and really doesn't matter. You can get "excommunicated" afterwards, but you can equally be excommunicated by literally every single other Church you're not a member of, and it carries the same meaning: none. Trasz (talk) 21:18, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

@Trasz - if you remove this dispute tag again falsely claiming "issue resolved"[1] while the matter has clearly not been resolved, or you call another editor's entry "vandalism," as you did here[2], I’ll report you myself. Just to give you a heads up. - GizzyCatBella🍁 21:50, 1 November 2020 (UTC)(Additional Note - Sorry, I have no opinion on the matter itself, just notice inappropriate behaviour of one of the involved here) - GizzyCatBella🍁 22:03, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Can you cite the Wikipedia rule that says one shouldn't call destructive actions a vandalism? Trasz (talk) 13:16, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

RFC

Should the procedure for notating the baptismal register be known here on Wikipedia as "apostasy" or "formal defection" according to reliable secondary sources? Elizium23 (talk) 03:07, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

• apostasy should be the default word. The sources in Poland overwhelmingly use the term apostazja (apostasy). There should not be a ban against using the term "formal defection", but in most contexts, such as the October 2020 Polish protests, "formal defection" from the Catholic Church would be less understandable to most readers than the much more widely used term "apostasy", that follows normal English usage.

• Bezprawnik "Procedura apostazji – jak wystąpić z Kościoła?" - Apostasy procedure - how can you quit the Church?
• Polsat "Apostazja - czym jest i jak wiele osób dokonuje jej w Polsce?" - Apostasy - what is it and how do you do it in Poland?
• National Geographic "Coraz więcej Polaków chce dokonać apostazji. Czym jest i jakie niesie ze sobą skutki?" More and more Poles want to apostasize. What is it and what are the consequences?
• Dziennik Łódzki "Jak przeprowadzić apostazję? Apostazja: co to jest? Procedura została uproszczona. Teraz jeszcze łatwiej dokonać apostazji 1.11.2020" How do you apostasize? Apostasy: what is it? The procedure was simplified. Now it's even easier to apostasize 1.11.2020 - In this case, the priest Paweł Rytel-Andrianik, spokesperson for the Episcopal Conference of Poland, described the Episcopate's 2016 decree as a decree on apostasy.

Boud (talk) 03:29, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

• The Church regulations are in no way more reliable than a dictionary. Apostasy is the right word here. Trasz (talk) 13:17, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Folks, let's be careful here. There are three sins against the unity of the church.
- Apostasy is radical abandonment of Christian faith.
- Heresy is serious error in doctrine, short of apostasy.
- Schism is severing communion with the church, and need not entail either heresy or schism.
So a person who leaves the full communion of the Catholic Church to join, for example, a church of the Orthodox Communion or to join the Polish National Catholic Church (PNCC) falls into schism, but probably not heresy and most assuredly not apostasy. OTOH, a baptized person who practices Wicca or Buddhism has fallen into apostasy. The Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) is currently in a state of both schism (severed ecclesial communion) and heresy (rejection of doctrine articulated infallibly in the apostolic constitution Lumen gentium), while the PNCC is only in a state of schism -- the magisterium of the Catholic Church has determined that there is no doctrinal obstacle to reconciliation of the PNCC. We should use the term that fits the situation, with respect to situations both in Poland and elsewhere. I'm not familiar with the situation in Poland that triggered this discussion, so I'll leave it to those who are familiar with the details to ascertain the correct English term.

We also need to be aware that, in translation from one language to another, words that seem similar or that constitute literal translation in another context may have very different meaning. The classical illustration of this is the sentence "I'm full." -- by which we Americans mean that we have eaten enough to be satisfied, and don't wish more food at that particular moment. But translate that sentence literally into French, and it takes on a completely different meaning. If said by a man, it means that he is drunk. And if said by a woman, it means that she is pregnant. And, to use another example, "science" is a transliteration of the Latin scientia meaning "knowledge" and philosophy is a transliteration of the Greek philosophia also meaning "knowledge" -- but somehow the English words "science" and "philosophy" are not exactly synonyms. The fact that "apostasy" seems to be a transliteration of the Polish word apostazja does not necessarily mean that it is the right word. Norm1979 (talk) 03:21, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

You're right, in principle, about linguistic false friends - common roots do not guarantee common meanings.

However, the context here is en.Wikipedia writing knowledge about human rights in the English language, not presenting an internal point of view of one particular religious organisation. There are no sins involved from the encyclopedic point of view. Poland is part of the EU with strong human rights legislation. When English commonly describes the formal quitting from a religious organisation as apostasy, then that is what counts - an internal church definition doesn't override that. "Apostasy" is not a word like "parthenogenesis" (virgin birth), which has a well-defined scientific meaning.

• Merriam-Webster: apostasy: an act of refusing to continue to follow, obey, or recognize a religious faith
• Oxford: Apostasy: Renunciation of one's religion.
• Cambridge: apostasy: the act of giving up your religious or political beliefs and leaving a religion or a political party

The word schism is about two groups separating, not about one person quitting a religious group. I fail to see how schism could replace the role of apostasy or how schismatize (?) could replace apostasize. I don't see how the expression fall into schism could be acceptable, because it would risk giving a pejorative connotation to the act. There is no negative connotation to apostasizing, except from the internal point of view of the Catholic Church (or any other religion or cult from which one apostasizes).

Boud (talk) 20:14, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Boud, (the negative connotation is built right into the Greek root a-)

The whole point here is to describe an internal process of the Catholic Church. It seems prudent to use the correct legal term to do it.

If we said that a criminal committed "murder" and was arrested for "murder" and was convicted of "murder", what does that say about a legal system where he was arrested for "homicide" and convicted of "manslaughter"? Do we not use precise terms for the internal POV of the courts and justice system? How is this any different? Elizium23 (talk) 21:21, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

The negative connotation is not built into the Greek root a-. It's a logical negation. Asynchronous communication for online education has no negative connotation. It happens to be not synchronous. Wikipedia editing is generally asynchronous, and there's nothing bad about that.

This is not a purely internal process of the Catholic Church: it is a process of the Catholic Church that the Church is forced to provide by European law in order to satisfy its human rights obligations. Internal Catholic Church rules do not generally count as "law" in the usual sense of the word - laws of the State - in EU member states. Internal Catholic Church terminology does not overrule widely accepted English-language dictionaries either. Being forced to say "formal defection" instead of "apostasy" would sound like a euphemism. See WP:WEASEL. Boud (talk) 22:51, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Boud, don't be ridiculous. The Church is sovereign and can't be forced into any process she doesn't want to do. Elizium23 (talk) 22:52, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Welcome to the XXIst century. That sort of attitude illustrates very much why some religious institutions are being forced to obey the law and why the taboo that protected the Catholic Church in Poland from criticism has been broken. Boud (talk) 08:11, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Boud, you seem to be missing the detail that a "religion" is a complete and self-consistent set of beliefs about deities, often associated with or other practices that are consistent with those beliefs. A religion is NOT an organization that adheres to those beliefs. Doctrinally, the simplest religion is Atheism -- the sole tenet that there is no deity. Dissociation from a religious organization that adheres to a particular set of beliefs does not necessarily imply abandonment of those beliefs. The Catholic Church is an organization that teaches Christianity, but it is NOT a religion. A person who leaves the Catholic Church to join another Christian denomination is NOT apostate.

As to your point that a schism is a separation of two groups, a "group" can be just one person. I'll also note that heresy often plays a role in a schism, as in the so-called "Protestant Reformation" of the 16th century -- Martin Luther and John Calvin were heretics as well as schismatics, but they were NOT apostate. Norm1979 (talk) 02:45, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

I would edit complete and self-consistent in the above, since it distracts from the issue - inconsistency within the belief system, and between the belief system and practices, is highly common in religions/religious organisations. Boud (talk) 08:11, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Boud, I suspect that what's closer to the truth is that many people who self-identify as adherents to a given religion never learn the whole body of doctrine of that religion and thus engage in practices that don't conform to its doctrine. But, in any case, this is diverging from the original question and thus getting off topic. Norm1979 (talk) 18:28, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

• Apostasy is what reliable sources are using. This is a touchy subject inside the church as apostasy, de jure, could imply burning at the stake or whatever else is proscribed to apostates these days, so they try to avoid this term inside the church, but it is still what sources use.--Astral Leap (talk) 10:36, 16 November 2020 (UTC) strike sock
• Apostasy (Summoned by bot) should be the default word. It is what is used by sources and is the nearest thing to an understandable term for secular-ish countries. The first use can always be clarified, (formally quitting the Catholic Church?). 'Defection' has too many cold-war associations and the objection to 'apostasy' seems based on an WP:OR theological argument.Pincrete (talk) 09:19, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Why is there a step-by-step explanation of how to leave the Catholic Church in Poland?

This page is intended for people interested in information about the Catholic Church in Poland. That's why it's weird that this section should be on this page. I understand that there is a lot of controversy around this topic. But that shouldn't have a major effect on the page. Besides, it also comes across as biased. On no other page about a religious or political organization on Wikipedia is there an explanation of how to cancel your membership. This while controversial events are also taking place at other organizations. Dariokp (talk) 11:25, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

No religious order or political organization makes it that hard to leave it. Also, the context: at this point, in Poland, people are leaving the church faster than ever before. Trasz (talk) 14:37, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the quick answer. I understand that people are now leaving the church faster than ever before in Poland. Only I do not understand why an explanation of how to do that is required. Moreover, some organizations are more difficult to leave than the Catholic Church. There are 21 countries in the world where apostasy is illegal, including the death penalty in some countries. According to this logic, we should also explain how to leave the major religions in those countries.Dariokp (talk) 21:16, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Exactly, the article should focus only in the growing apostasy trend in Poland, not about how to apostatize. This last theme belongs more to the article on Apostasy in Christianity, here it is off topic.--Potatín5 (talk) 13:48, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

To my edits

All Polish bishops in active ministry are members of KEP (see art. 3 of its statut). And the Eastern Ordinariate de jure oversees all Eastern Catholics that aren't members of UGCC or the one parish in Kostomłoty. However, I doubt that it actually serves anyone besides Armenians because other Greek Catholics (Slovaks or Ruthenians) would be served by UGCC hierarchy and other Eastern Catholics would be extremely rare in Poland and not native to Poland (unlike Armenians). It's a bit simplification but I think it's justified. (And the current version isn't correct, too, because of the neo-uniate parish in Kostomloty.) --Pan Někdo (talk) 14:35, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

You are engaging in original research that misrepresents the current situation. Unless you have evidence that says that no other Eastern Catholics are served by the ordinariate, you should not suggest that it is exclusively an Armenian body. You need to source why you think the current version is incorrect, too. ~ Pbritti (talk) 16:19, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

From the page of Armenian Catholics in Poland: "W praktyce, oznacza to opiekę wyłącznie nad wiernymi obrządku ormiańskiego..." (EN: In practise, it means only care for the faithful of Armenian rite...) and follows by mentioning the Kostomloty neouniate parish that has been transfered to the diocese of Siedlce (which used to be in this ordinariate). And lastly: the current version doesn't explicitely mention that the ordinariate doesn't serve anyone else, it only says that Armenians are served by it. (And the version I've just reverted is wrong in multiple ways: KEP compromises of all bishops, see link above and not all other Eastern Catholics are served by the Ordinariate, the Kostomloty parish is in a Latin diocese[3].) --Pan Někdo (talk) 08:21, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for providing a reference. I have corrected your additions for grammar and links. ~ Pbritti (talk) 15:20, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Joke?

Is this article a joke? We can read: "A 2014 survey conducted by the Church found that the number of Polish Catholics attending Sunday Mass had increased by two million over the last decade, with 95% of baptized Catholics regularly attending Mass in 2014."

While the sources cited say that 40% attended mass in 2014. And a few other similar sentences we can find. Berkiyar (talk) 07:55, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

@Berkiyar: Not a joke, but rather a severe inaccuracy. Thank you for recognizing it and reporting it here! ~ Pbritti (talk) 14:49, 20 August 2024 (UTC)