Spór o bilans PRL na łamach prasy katolickiej po 1989 roku

Abstract

The main aim of the analysis is to identify and define the various trends of Catholicism in contemporary Poland, and demonstrate how these divisions are visible on the pages of the Catholic press in the context of assessments formulated about the post-war Poland. Among the various descriptions of Catholic circles, the most important proposal is the division into four conceptual models: Catholic stronghold, fighting Catholicism, Catholicism of dialogue and private Catholicism. As a result of analysis of the most important journals of Catholic studies it may be concluded that, as there are different Catholicisms in Poland, so different is the balance of PRL on the pages of the Catholic press. This balance is complex and ambiguous, but it seems to be legitimate to say that the assessment of the PRL formulated by Catholic writers, though not diametrically opposed, is nevertheless found in three separate trends of Catholicism: Catholicism of dialogue („Tygodnik Powszechny”, „Więź”, „Znak”), which stresses the difficulty or even impossibility to describe the post-war Poland in unequivocal terms; Catholic stronghold („Gość Niedzielny”, „Słowo-Dziennik Katolicki”, „Niedziela”), which assesses the post-war Poland as unequivocally negative; and fighting Catholicism („Ład”, „Chrześcijanin w Świecie”), which indicates certain differences across the decades of existence of that political system and the heterogeneity of the phases of the system. Description and evaluation of as well as reflection on postwar Poland, published in the Catholic press, add new threads to the characteristics of these three trends of Catholicism, thus confirming the validity of the proposed typology of Catholicisms in Poland.