[2] As in most other Communist countries, religion was not outlawed as such (an exception being the People's Socialist Republic of Albania) and was permitted by the constitution, but the state attempted to achieve an atheistic society.
[5] This led to the antireligious activity in Poland being compelled to take a more cautious and conciliatory line than in other Communist countries, largely failing in their attempt to control or suppress the Polish Church.
[7] Communist general Karol Świerczewski was given Catholic funeral rites, Polish radio broadcast mass until 1947, and Bolesław Bierut's presidential oath in 1947 ended with the phrase 'so help me God'.
[1] Polish society was prepared for the persecutions post-1945 due to its long history prior to the Bolshevik revolution of operation under the rule of regimes that were hostile to it.
[5] The state supported priests who collaborated with them; the remainder of the clergy was accused of reactionary activities, lack of solidarity with the nation and conspiracy with the Vatican.
"[9] Bierut gave cooperative priests privileges including vacations, financial support, tax exemption and protection from punishments under canon law (which were not forbidden by the state).
[9] The state also attempted to penetrate the Church through the creation of several other organizations: the Polish Committee of Peace Partisans, the Catholic Social Club, and the Society of Children's Friends.
[9] Nevertheless, the government failed to produce a schism in the Church due to lack of popular support, so they disbanded the organization in 1955 and called on people to instead join the movement for peace partisans.
[11] Propaganda also tried to link the Vatican with fascism, and claimed Pius XII was responsible for Francisco Franco's uprising in Spain as well as the Vichy regime in wartime France.
The seminary was situated in Eastern Poland, it employed former residents of the territory annexed by the USSR in 1939, and it had arisen great concern to the government, provoking its brutal closure.
Three Salesian bishops, who were under heavy fire in the official propaganda, disappeared in 1952; in the same year several priests in Kraków were arrested on charges of espionage and sabotage.
The government claimed that it seldom used its power of veto, although Cardinal Wyszyński in his role in appointing bishops reported that he found himself largely obstructed.
[13] After the government's coming to power, the prewar press legislation was abolished, the printing industry and plants were nationalized, and prepublication censorship was imposed.
[3] Poland's vast and diverse Catholic press network from the pre-communist era was mostly eradicated, with the exception of some publications that continued to exist under heavy censorship, a reduction of their circulation and a requirement to only speak on purely religious matters (as opposed to political or social).
In 1952, the new Polish constitution was created, which did not include previously given protections to religion and the position of the Church in the country was worded ambiguously enough to allow for almost any new law of the Sejm to not be in contradiction with it.
The government also issued legislation to limit such instruction to no more than 2 hours per week, that the religious instructors would be made state employees (the Church told the clergy not to register and accept salary to fulfill Jesus' commandment of teaching) and that local school boards would be in control of the education.
These restrictions were initially reluctantly enforced, but in 1964 new legislation allowed all such buildings for religious instruction to be inspected for hygiene by the government, which reserved the right to shut them down on such grounds.
[6] Also in 1959, members of religious orders were no longer permitted to become parish priests or administrators, and they were also discharged from service at hospitals, public nurseries, dispensaries and kindergartens.
[5] The "Oasis" movement, was created in the 1960s by Father Franciszek Blachniki, and it consisted of Church activities including pilgrimages, retreats and various ecumenical endeavours.
[16] In 1965, on the eve of Poland's 1000 year anniversary of its conversion to Christianity, the Polish episcopate made preparation for the event by inviting foreign guests including Pope Paul VI.
"[6] To punish the Church for its behaviour, several seminaries were closed and seminarians were made subject to the military draft, Wyszyński was denied privilege to travel to Rome and Paul VI was barred from coming to the Millennium celebrations.
School curricula was modified to include more Marxist-Leninist ideas, new superintendents sympathetic to the party were appointed and later afternoon classes were created to hinder children from going to receive religious instruction.
[15] The state came to increasingly change it approach to gender relations (earlier used to strike the Church with) in the later decades when woman's role in the family became more strongly emphasized in official propaganda and legislative measures were introduced to make it harder for women to find employment.
[20] Wyszyński provided a significant obstacle to the Communists taking control of the church in Poland; he died in 1981 and was replaced by Cardinal Józef Glemp.
During his visit he bluntly challenged Communist ideology by declaring that Christianity was the route to true human freedom (as opposed to Marxism) and called people to non-conformance.
In the spirit of fraternal solidarity and on the foundation of Christ's cross I, too, have shared in the building of the huge Polish works known as 'Nowa Huta' together with you, managers, engineers, miners, labourers, minister.
Jerzy Urban, government spokesman, claimed: "All the people's grievances against the power of the state were channelled into the Church and the election of a Pole as the Pope strengthened this religious propensity even further; when He came to Poland, I knew that this meant the end of a political epoch.
The government, enabling the fulfillment of the pastoral mission of the Catholic Church and other beliefs, preserves in accordance with the constitution, the lay character of the state.
Some exceptions occurred, such as Fr Piotr Poplawski, an Orthodox priest openly sympathetic to Solidarity who "killed himself" in 1985; several doctors asked to confirm his suicide refused to certify this as the cause of death.
[13] A Roman Catholic priest named Jerzy Popiełuszko had been murdered by the police the previous year,[1] and the doctor who performed his autopsy was brought in and also confirmed that Fr Piotr had committed suicide.