Abstract
The author attempts an objective view of several characteristics of Polish Catholicism: practice of religion, content of Faith, and moral attitudes.
These phenomena are discussed in relation to sex, age, the civil state and culture.
1. The study of religious practice centres on attendance at Mass and other practices such as prayer, examination of conscience and receiving Communion.
2. To assess the content of Faith the enquiry takes as a starting point a general question: Faith in man's judgement after death (because of its presuppositions: existence of God, belief in His mercy, Hell etc.). The responses are correlated with the results obtained regarding practice. Other questions are posed concerning other dogmas (Infallibility Providence, Grace).
3. Finally, moral attitudes are themselves studied on the basis of specific questions: opinion about theft, forgiveness, Sunday rest, divorce and abortion. The responses are correlated with the practice and content of Faith.
The enquiry shows that 83 % of people are attached to the Church; 10% are opposed to it as humanists. Those who are practising are not unready to admit reservations on questions of Faith and those who believe are not necessarily practising. In general Faith grows with age (except where it concerns Faith in Providence); one meets it wherever religion is practised (there are exceptions regarding Infallibility).
Finally one must take into account the resistance encountered among people who have received a technical, secondary or higher, education. These conclusions reached in three large cities in Poland would seem to demand other more extensive comparative studies.