A new government regulation halving religion classes in public schools is an “unlawful act,” Poland’s bishops said Sunday, ahead of a presidential election that could accelerate the country’s secularization.
The presidium of Poland’s bishops’ conference voiced “strong opposition” Jan. 19 to a regulation signed by education minister Barbara Nowacka reducing state-funded religion classes from two hours a week to one.
The presidium said the regulation, which takes effect Sept. 1, was an unlawful act because changes must be agreed with the Catholic Church and other religious associations recognized under Polish law that organize classes.
The Jan. 17 regulation also says that religion classes, which are voluntary, should be the first or last lessons of the day, except in elementary schools where all pupils are attending the classes.
The presidium — which consists of bishops’ conference president Archbishop Tadeusz Wojda, vice-president Archbishop Józef Kupny, and secretary general Bishop Marek Marczak — said the changes restricted parents’ constitutional right to raise their children in line with their beliefs. They added that they also infringed religion teachers’ employment rights.
“We expect the Ministry of National Education to return to applying the standards of the rule of law and to refrain from taking confrontational actions against religious believers who are full-fledged citizens of the Republic of Poland,” the bishops said.
The bishops’ statement underlined the tense relationship between the Polish episcopate and the coalition government, which came to power in December 2023 promising to weaken ties between Church and state, following eight years of rule by the Law and Justice party, which was perceived as close to the Church.
The coalition, an ideologically diverse alliance led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, has also clashed with the bishops over abortion, sex education, and proposed cuts to government subsidies for religious associations recognized under Polish law, including the Catholic Church.
The coalition’s push to reduce Church influence on public life has faced resistance from Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, a practicing Catholic allied with Law and Justice. Duda has said he would veto any bill seeking to liberalize the country’s abortion law.
Duda’s second and final term as president ends Aug. 6, when the winner of the country’s May 18 presidential election is sworn in. Rafał Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw, is currently ahead in opinion polls.
Trzaskowski, the ruling coalition’s presidential candidate, narrowly lost to Duda in the 2020 presidential election. He supports same-sex civil partnerships and the liberalization of abortion laws.
In May 2024, it was widely reported that Trzaskowski banned the display of religious symbols, including crucifixes, in Warsaw’s city hall. Crucifixes are commonly displayed in official buildings in Poland, where 71% of the population identifies as Catholic. Trzaskowski has since insisted that no crucifix was removed and the decision meant only that crucifixes would not be displayed in newly opened spaces.
Shortly after she took office, education minister Barbara Nowacka indicated that the coalition government would make far-reaching changes to religion classes in public schools.
She announced in June 2024 that she had commissioned a draft regulation reducing religion classes from two hours a week to one.
Participation in the classes is optional and depends on the wishes of parents or students themselves in high school classes. The classes are largely, but not exclusively, Catholic catechism classes. Other religious groups recognized by the Polish state, such as the Orthodox Church, can also organize classes.
Catholic catechism classes in schools are governed by the 1993 concordat between Poland and the Holy See. Catholic teachers of religion, most of whom are lay people, need authorization (a missio canonica) from their bishop.
In Polish cities such as Warsaw, Poznań, and Wrocław, around 60-70% of elementary school pupils and 15-30% of high school students attend the classes — a mark of growing secularization in urban areas.
Poland’s bishops formally opposed the overhaul of religion classes in a June 2024 statement, in which they noted that religion is taught in public schools in 23 out of the 27 European Union countries. (The exceptions are France, Slovenia, Luxembourg, and Bulgaria.)
They also recalled that religious education was removed from Poland’s schools when communists came to power following World War II and reintroduced in 1991, after the fall of the Iron Curtain.
In August 2024, Bishop Wojciech Osial, chairman of the Polish bishops’ education commission, endorsed a petition against the plans to cut religion classes.
Poland’s education ministry sparked further controversy in October 2024, when it unveiled plans for compulsory sex education classes. It said that the new subject, formally known as “health education,” would be introduced Sept. 1, 2025, for children aged nine to 17.
But in a Jan. 16 interview, Nowacka said the new subject would be optional for the 2025-2026 school year. She added that further decisions would be taken after discussions with teachers.
Bishops’ conference Fr. Leszek Gęsiak, S.J., said the Church would need to examine the details of the new policy carefully.
“If it is an additional subject, where the right of parents to decide whether their children will or will not participate in these activities is preserved, this is probably a solution that goes in the right direction,” he said.
