One of the most controversial issues in the contemporary history and current transformation of Central and Eastern Europe is the role of religious organizations, especially the Roman Catholic Church in social and cultural change. In Poland, the Roman Catholic Church has been one of the central political forces and constructors of ideologies and world views. This paper examines the role which churches, and especially the Roman Catholic Church play in the current process of transformation and reconstruction of identity of Central European societies.
In most parts of Central Europe and in Eastern Europe religion was a very significant part of that shared national culture, and churches played an important role as constructors and promoters of national culture. Faith and church were strongly linked with the national identity, especially in such countries as Poland, where most of the neighbors and most of the enemies defined as such by the mythologized national history were of different religion (Modras. 72).
During the communist period in Eastern Europe the Roman Catholic Church was generally perceived as an anti-state force, an organization opposing, as much as it could, the communist transformation of the society, its economy, its structure, and especially its culture. The end of communism, to which the Roman Catholic Church contributed so much, brought a dramatic change for this powerful institution. The discourse of binary opposition between nation and state largely disappeared, as it no longer corresponded with the feeling that most people in Eastern Europe began to have of living in a free world. The Church, however, remains unaccustomed to the free market of symbolic discourses. It feels at home in situations where it has to struggle for survival or for domination. Consequently the Church is loosing its popular support and its influence, and often relies on the old methods of ideological....
