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Nasza Przeszłość

Vol. 105 (2006): Our Past

Articles

The attitude of the clergy and lay people to the Catholic Action in the interwar Łomża diocese

  • Wojciech Guzewicz
DOI: https://doi.org/10.52204/np.2006.105.231-246  [Google Scholar]
Published: 2006-06-30

Abstract

Catholic Action was the largest Catholic social organisation in the Diocese of Lomza between the wars. In less than eight years of activity, it managed to create solid structures consisting of two interrelated institutions: institutes (DIAK, DAK, PAK) and associations (branches of associations). It also managed to bring together Catholics from four countries: young people, men and women, several thousand believers in total. In 1938, 7338 members belonged to the KSK, 7348 to the KSM, 5579 to the KSMM and 4778 to the KSMM. In addition to their internal educational work, all the associations were concerned with the following apostolic tasks: spreading the Catholic "apostolic spirit" and "understanding of the affairs of state", caring for the knowledge and practice of Christian charity, spreading education and science, the principles of hygiene and physical education, supporting the temperance movement and carrying out military, professional and agricultural preparations.
Priests played an essential role in Catholic Action. Many of them even went down in history in this form of pastoral work, although the degree of activity of individual priests was uneven. Alongside the priests who strongly supported Catholic Action, there were priests who approached the new organisation with a degree of incredulity or even dislike and hostility. However, even these priests, although initially sceptical about Catholic Action, after some time came to see this form of religious life as an effective way of integrating and educating society.
The reception of Catholic Action by some villagers was passive and sometimes even reluctant. Although they were sincerely attached to religion and the Church, their faith, which had not been deepened, was linked to the practice of a rather traditional piety. A major problem in the diocese of Lomza was also to involve the intelligentsia in the work of Catholic Action. This was neither easy nor simple, especially as the elitism of this group sometimes led to a great distance from the rest of society. Although the local branches recorded cases of such cooperation, they represented only a small percentage of the diocesan total. It can therefore be concluded that the intelligentsia of the Lomza diocese did not play a significant role in Catholic Action; their influence on the organisation and activities of the movement was sporadic.

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