Zabiegi Kościoła w Polsce o religijny charakter szkoły i wychowania w latach 1918-1939

Abstract

In the period between the two World Wars the Episcopate aimed at ensuring religious character of school. In these activities it encountered tremendous difficulties caused by the laft-wing social and political organisations and in the late twenties and early thirties on the part of educational authorities as well. While the reborn State was in the process of forming, a conflict whether or not religion should be present at school was manifested in parliamentary quarrels, in commentaries which revealed the opinions of particular political parties as well as social parties and trade unions associated with them. Press and parliamentary debates abounded in declarations, some of which were not well-balanced. Taking the voice of Catholic society and the views of the Episcopate into account the first governments, despite their leftist roots, did not take any ill-willed measures against the Church. Neither did, obviously, the centrist and right-wing governments that followed. Still the Church did not manage to carry out all her postulates in the constitutional debate. What was achieved in the Constitution and concordat gave a good initial position to the realisation of Catholic principles in the field of education and upbringing. The situation changed after the May coup d’etat. The WR&OP ministers, ill-disposed towards the Church, tried to use the authority of religion in educating a good citizen. That is why they strove for the dominance of educational authorities over all kinds of upbringing, including religious upbringing, in which the traits of faith were being blurred. This gave rise to frequent arguments with the Episcopate. Only after the change in the political system in 1937 did the situation normalise. Even in the period of relative stabilisation in the relations between State and the Church, the bishops did not manage to carry out the majority of their postulates. Introduction of co-education was not stopped, the system of payment for the contract teachers of religion was not changed. The elements of religious education continued to be obscured wherever they still existed. Although the reduction of the number of lessons of religion was stopped, the status from the early twenties was not restored. The ordinance according to which the inspectors allowed parish clergy to teach at schools was not rescinded, yet it was not applied either. The Episcopate obtained a regulation on qualifications required to teach at schools, but on the terms set by the ministry. The only true gains were: initiating in schools religious organisations subordinated entirely to the Church, not to school authorities, and the introduction of the ordinance of correlation’s.