At the Wednesday gathering of Donald Tusk's government, a decision was made to set up an interministerial squad that will prepare a proposal to change the backing of the Church Fund. The Prime Minister speaks of replacing him with “the work of the faithful”, a voluntary taxation credit. The squad will be composed of Deputy Prime Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, Minister of the Interior Marcin Kierwiński, household Minister Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk and Finance Minister Andrzej Domanski.
It is reasonable to uncertainty whether the government would have dealt with this issue in specified a hurry, if not for the outrage of part of the electorate, which expects to rapidly deal with the absurd privileges which the Polish Catholic Church has enjoyed since 1989. Information about
in the draft budget for 2024 PLN 257 million for the Kościelny Fund, from which the wellness and pension contributions of clergymen are paid, and partially besides charitable, educational and educational activities, as well as renovations belonging to the Church of buildings.
It's a evidence sum, which is due to a minimum wage increase. In September, Prime Minister Morawiecki wrote it in the project, and the fresh government – especially in the face of delaying the PIS's surrender process – he did not have time to make extremist changes, due to the fact that the deadline for submitting the final proposal for the president's signature is at the end of January.
For knives (unfortunately) we will not win
In the election run announced 100 concretes per 100 days of government Among another things, there was a promise to liquidate the Church Fund. From the beginning, however, it was known that it would not be possible to implement this postulate – specified as the 1 concerning legal abortion until the 12th week of pregnancy or partnerships – until the president is Andrzej Duda, so at least until 2025.
In addition, no of these provisions were included in the coalition agreement against the 3rd Way Members' opposition. The liquidation of the Koscielny Fund was to be opposed to the PSL (Poland 2050 has it in its programme, and Marshal Holovnia himself has repeatedly declared his support for this solution). Name 100 specifics per 100 days of government So it's confusing. We should be talking about 100 things Donald Tusk was prepared to promise to win the election. In order to give him justice, I would add that amazingly (depending on expectations, I personally hung him low) quite a few promises from the government began to implement Right away.
Regardless of formal limitations, coalitionists (maybe outside the Left) cannot imagine making changes without consulting the Church. His privileges are not public media, so they can just be liquidated. Orders on TVP can be carried with your hands rented necks in leather, and in the Polish Press Agency with the aid of a private safety company, but with the clergy you gotta sit down and talk, looking for a compromise.
If Prime Minister Tusk truly wants to make changes in the financing of the Church (and I believe he will, or he will lose the support of the multitude of young women who have guaranteed him a victory), he cannot go to the knife with him – this would mean that he would not support an crucial coalitionist, the 3rd Way.
As a individual experienced with spiritual indoctrination, who in wet dreams sees churches burning, I compose these words with distaste. And at the same time, the hope that, contrary to what Donald Tusk would have wanted (no 1 should be tempted to face religion or the Church), sooner or later Poles, and especially Poles, will declare an open war to the Church, forcing the state authorities to take more decisive steps, specified as breach of the concordat.
The liquidation of the Fund is the smallest problem of the Church
Above all, however, the importance of the Church Fund to the state and the Church itself is greatly overestimated. Its resources represent a tiny part of the state budget received by the Catholic Church – they full Okay. PLN 3 billion per year. Most, due to the fact that over 1 billion, go to salaries for catechists, priests and nuns teaching religion in schools. Almost PLN 300 million are received by universities, seminars and universities, and around 250 million cost the maintenance of orphanages, hospitals, nursing homes and outpatients. There are various grants for individual parishes and church institutions. And of course, voluntary contributions from the faithful.
No wonder, then, that the hierarchs greatly more fiercely protesting against the proposal to limit their ability to indoctrinate children in schools. If Minister Barbara Nowacka were able to push through a task that included 1 alternatively of 2 spiritual lessons per week, it would mean not only little influence for the Church on the formation of the minds of children and young people, but besides more than half a billion little gross from the state budget. Twice as much as if the Church Fund had been abolished without a voluntary taxation write-off, and there is no specified solution.
The results of surveys conducted by United Surveys for Virtual Poland are all the more surprising. Nowacka's proposal 67% of respondents are positive. In case of liquidation of the Fund That's only 46.7 percent. 46.6% of which 21.6 percent believe that the amount of backing should be reduced.
The liquidation of the Church Fund and replacing it with a voluntary taxation write-off (even if there were not crowds of believers willing to pay a penny in specified a form), would not have led the Church to ruin, but the symbolic dimension of this change would have been a breakthrough. This would be the first case of depriving this institution of its privilege since 2011, i.e. since the liquidation of the Property Commission, which gave the Church land with a full area of 2 Warsaws.
Nothing about the Church Without the Church
If I were to make a ranking of the most impudent, hypocritical statements that have appeared in the media since Donald Tusk's swearing-in to the Prime Minister 2 weeks ago, Archbishop Ryś and the interview that Jacek Żakowski conducted with him on Tok FM radio on Wednesday. He compared president Duda himself, justifying vetoing the budget bill (because of the provision on public media funding) with the phrase "state of law" and "respect of the Constitution".
A good candidate would besides be Jędraszewski, who, during a shepherd in Wawel, referred to the thought of reducing the number of spiritual lessons in schools, asked: "Why do you want to spiritually mutilate subsequent generations of Polish children and young people, as was already done in our time of the Polish People's Republic?", after which he stated: "After decades of struggles, you effort again to take distant or at least limit our civic freedom."
Ryś, asked by Żakowski about the possible liquidation of the Church Fund, said: “I anticipate to talk to the church side. I hope that no 1 wants to regulate matters of the Church in Poland without asking for any opinion in this regard."
Do you remember erstwhile the Church asked the women's opinion about whether the law should force them to study permanently damaged fetuses and to die in childbirths, so that they could die in their uteruss erstwhile he pressured the government to tighten the rules? Or erstwhile you were asked to give your opinion on whether you would be enrolled in a community of the Catholic Church, from which you would not be able to sign out, but for a symbolic and unchanging act of apostasy? How did the Church, through its tremendous influences, lead to the withdrawal of in vitro funding, of course by consulting previously with couples struggling with infertility?
The Archbishop has no reason to be concerned, due to the fact that Church representatives will undoubtedly be invited to negotiate. And realizing the progressive laicization and anti-clerical agitation, they will compromise. The 1 that assumes the liquidation of the Church Fund – but not the limitation of spiritual indoctrination hours in schools, unless with backing from the budget of lessons in catechical halls – will be the most virulent for them.
Unfortunately, in the context of the relation with the Church Poland will not rapidly emergence from its knees. In the most optimistic scenario, we will be kneeling before him in 2025 alternatively of lying in a pie. A Worldly State It is inactive a song of a very distant and uncertain future.
