Pandemic has weakened Poles' religiosity: study
17:46
The COVID-19 pandemic caused a general de-intensification of Poles' religious practices and clearly weakened their subjective sense of religiosity. In addition, it accelerated the polarization of Polish religiosity, researchers from the Institute of Sociological Sciences and Pedagogy of the Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW) showed.
"The idea for this study appeared at the beginning of the pandemic. However, at that time, we were interested in the attitudes of Poles towards the new situation in general: we asked about their behavior, fears, experiences, and opinions. Religiosity was only one element. However, since we noticed that significant changes were taking place in this area, we decided to explore the topic further," Dr. Rafal Boguszewski, author of the publication, said.
It quickly became apparent that a trend was evident: during the initial period of the pandemic, the belief that one's religiosity had increased was slightly higher, then it began to decline. Close analysis showed that regular participation in institutional religious practices in the study group fell threefold during the pandemic – from 31.2 percent before COVID-19 times to 11.9 percent. The number of people who did not attend church increased from 23.1 percent to 57 percent.
"We haven't asked about this so far, but it can be assumed that issues such as the tightening of abortion laws and subsequent scandals involving church officials may have had an even more significant impact on people's discouragement of religion, including especially young citizens of our country, than the pandemic itself," the SGGW researcher added.
