Departure from Transcendence: On the Attitudes of Contemporary Polish Youth towards Religion and Spirituality

Robert T. PTASZEK

Abstract

The article presents considerations inspired by the results of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study, which shows that in Poland, between 2009 and 2022, as much as thirty percent of eighth-grade students ceased to consider religion an important part of their worldview. This is a symptomatic result, which calls for reflection on (1) what the most important reasons for this situation are, (2) what young people are trying to replace religion with, and (3) what might be the consequences of replacing religion with the so-called new spirituality. On the first issue, some serious causes can be seen in the Church itself and in the style of evangelization it pursues, which seems to facilitate rather than hinder the “silent apostasy” of its faithful. On issue two, important distinctions are made between the extreme alternatives, which reject religion, and the moderate ones, focused on the pursuit of a new religion or a substitute for the existing one. Issue three highlights the difference between Catholic spirituality on the one hand and the para-religious form of spirituality without religion and proposals for an atheistic spirituality without God on the other. Mental and emotional experiences, including psychedelic ones, along with the techniques used to induce them, do not enhance a person’s rational control over his or her own life, shaping an (often risky) lifestyle rather than the human ability to guide one’s own choices in the perspective of perfection and the ultimate overcoming of evil.