Paper short abstract:

The paper discusses the project investigating civic rituality connected to recent anti-abortion protests in Poland. This practice, emerging in response to the hegemonic position of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland, is approached through a critical adoption of the re-enchantment concept.

Paper long abstract:

This paper discusses the newly launched project investigating ethnographically civic rituality connected to anti-abortion legislation protests as resulting from a specific – oppressive – political, moral, aesthetic and juridical context in Poland. This practice, emerging in response to the hegemonic position of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) in Poland, is approached through a critical adoption of the re-enchantment concept.

The dominant position of the RCC, expressed not only in the extremely high numbers of religious adherence, but also in a number of legal and economic privileges endowed by the state, has a long history and has been upheld throughout the socialist period, despite the official reluctance to religion. In the noughties the number of adherents claiming Catholic identity dropped but still stays very high and ranges around 90%. However, the relationship of Poles with Catholicism is systematically eroding. The change is visible in people’s views on the ways the Church should participate in public life. The European Values Study, in which Poland participates since 1990, demonstrates that the Church ceases to be seen as the authority on various issues. Recent manifestations gathering crowds numbering thousands of young people are a firm demonstration that a change in this relationship is occurring.

The paper thus positions itself in conversation with the concept of re-enchantment through the core issue of change: how understanding as well practices of “religion” change over time, and in which context should we situate those changes on order to account for them?