Poles Lose Faith as PiS Drives Politicisation of Church

Now, asked the most fundamental question about whether God exists, Rogalski, after a while and with some hesitation, replies: "It would be nice if he did."

In July, it will be two years since this former fervent believer undertook an apostasy - an act of formal disaffiliation from religion, seen as a major sin by Catholic dogma - but is only now prepared to talk about it, following last year's mass protests against the tightening, with the church's backing, of the abortion law.

In his case, leaving the church and faith has been spread over years. Yet what ultimately weighed the scales in favour of apostasy were reports on the scale of clerical child abuse and the cover-ups of it, as well as the church's tight alliance with the ruling right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party.

"As a person recognised by many as a Catholic, I decided I don't want to be associated with all these disgusting things from our social life related to Catholicism," Rogalski commented.

In Poland, where 92 per cent of people identify as Catholic, national celebrations are accompanied by mass and a crucifix is visible in many public spaces, apostasy has traditionally been rare: in fact, the Institute of Catholic Church Statistics (ISKK) stopped investigating it in 2010, when just 459 people were recorded as having left the church - a tiny number for a country of nearly 38 million people, 32.5 million of whom are baptised.

Now, alarmed by signs that growing numbers are abandoning the religion of their childhood, the ISKK plans to start again collecting data on what seems to be a recent phenomenon. "We would like to investigate it, but it largely depends on whether the dioceses will provide us with statistics," Wojciech Sadlon, the ISSK director, told BIRN.