Catholic Church in Poland
Polish members of the Catholic Church, like elsewhere in the world, are under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome. The Latin Church and its Episcopal Conference of Poland includes 41 dioceses of the Latin Church; Polish Eastern Catholics are organized under three eparchies. Combined, these comprise about 10,000 parishes and religious orders. There are 40.55 million registered Catholics in Poland. The primate of the Church is Wojciech Polak, Archbishop of Gniezno. In the early 2000s, 99% of all children born in Poland were baptized Catholic. In 2015, the church recorded that 97.7% of Poland's population was Catholic. Other statistics suggested this proportion of adherents to Catholicism could be as low as 85%. The rate of decline has been described as "devastating" the former social prestige and political influence that the Catholic Church in Poland once enjoyed. On the other hand, a 2023 survey of 36 countries with large Catholic populations using data from the World Values Survey revealed that 52% of Polish Catholics claimed to attend Mass weekly, the seventh highest of the nations surveyed and the highest among European countries. Most Poles adhere to Roman Catholicism. About 71.3% of the population identified themselves as such in the 2021 census, down from 88% in 2011.
Basilica of Our Lady of Licheń
Monument in Poznań to Karol Wojtyła, a Pole who was Pope John Paul II from 1978 to 2005.
Procession in Wrocław, 2009.
Corpus Christi in Sanok
Polish Episcopal Conference
The Polish Episcopal Conference or Polish Bishops' Conference is the central organ of the Catholic Church in Poland. It is composed of 3 cardinals, 24 archbishops and 118 bishops.
Secretariat of the Polish Episcopal Conference building at 6 Stefan Wyszyński Square in Warsaw