RELIGION AND MORALITY IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF POLES – A SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

Janusz Mariański

Abstract

The article poses some interesting questions asked from a sociological point of view. In what way is, in the consciousness of contemporary Poles, the relationship between religious faith and morals shaped? Is religion considered a necessary foundation of moral life, or is it thought to be merely supporting a certain moral order? Does (and if so, to what extent) religion have the power to influence human behavior, either on the level of individual (personal) morality or that of social or civic morality? Is it possible to be moral without religion? What is the impact of religion on marital or family morality? Is there a connection between religion and moral absolutism? Does the escalation of moral permissiveness reinforce the weakening of ties with religion? In which sectors of the society is the relationship between religion and morality manifesting more clearly? Particular attention is paid to a few selected issues related to morality, especially in the context of social teaching of the Catholic Church; these issues indicate the scale of the increasing mutual distance between religion and morality in the minds of Poles (including Catholics). We take primarily the issue of the attitude of Poles to general moral principles (absolutism vs. relativism), then we focus on the issue of the declared justification of moral norms and attitudes towards Catholic morality. In our considerations on the relationship between religion and ethics, religion and morality, we refer to public opinion polls and sociological research. We are aware that their results are not always consistent with each other, sometimes clearly divergent. There are a variety of reasons for that, one of them being the fact that the results of polls are sometimes partly an effect of respondents’ giving answers which are rather intended to be socially “correct”, not necessarily to fully express respondents’ own convictions.