The conservative, nationalistic revolution in today's Poland is a very complex phenomenon usually seen as a part of international process or the consequence of economical transformation. The fact that this revolution is lead by right-handed political forces together with Catholic Church let us look at it from a different point of view. In my paper I would like to see this phenomenon as part of a political and cultural process of making Catholic Church an inherent part of Polish democracy.
The break-through of 1989 has its political roots in Solidarity movement in the 1980. Both facts are remembered as the victory of democracy and freedom. Often forgotten fact is that Catholic Church and catholic values were inseparable parts of the battle against communism and were the core of democratic change in Poland. The power of Catholic Church has been confirmed in symbolic gestures such as a placement of a cross at the wall of the main room of Gdansk Shipyard during the strike in 1980 and at the wall of the Polish Parliament in 1991. It's been established also in specific laws such as an introduction of religion to public schools in 1990.
One of the main measure of democracy is an attitude toward reproductive rights. Today in Poland we again are facing the threat of limiting them. This lead us back to the 1980's. In 'Solidarity's Secret', an influential monograpf about women in Solidarity movement, Shana Penn remembered: 'The political restraints on their power made the clergy unusually tolerant. They turned their backs on abortion and divorce'. My research shows that the facts were different: Catholic Church saw Solidarity as the moral revolution that would help to outlaw abortion. That hasn't been possible until 1989. In 1993 former Solidarity politics supported by Church introduced one of the most restrictive anti-abortion law in Europe.
"The God has won in the East" – said Pope John Paul II in 1990, and these words makes us look at the reality with more attention. I would like to see today's raise of nationalism as part of a wider problem of Poland and some other countries of this part of the Europe. Asking about today's nationalism I would like to ask a fundamental question: to what extend Poland after 1989 was established as a secular and democratic country?
