Religion and the public sphere

We talk to Professor Irena Borowik about religion in the public sphere, relations between the Roman Catholic Church and politics in Poland, and what makes sociology of religion an important field.

Prof. Irena Borowik is the head of the Department of Social Research on Religion at the Institute of Sociology. Her long-term interest in sociology of religion has particularly focused on theories of religion, empirical research on religiosity in Poland and the world, and transformations in Central and Eastern Europe.

For many years, your research interests have been in the field of sociology of religion. Why is this an important topic today?

Partly, I think, for the same reasons that it was in the past. Around 100 years ago, reflection on religion emerged in sociology, along with attempts to define what it is. Those involved in this pointed out that religion is a universal social phenomenon, and that regardless of how diverse societies and religions are, they have many features in common. These include treating religion as a source of meaning in the lives of individuals and groups and as a source of legitimisation of social reality by referring to transcendence. I think that these are universal elements, although the functions of religion are diverse. A fairly common idea today is that religion no longer plays an integrating role at a society-wide level, and is no longer Peter Berger's "sacred canopy" that extends over the whole society. Yet many of its functions remain important: giving meaning, integration around religious values, legitimisation. These premises certainly give a sociologist some permanent motivation for dealing with religion. The second dimension is linked to the meaning that religion acquires in the times of tumultuous changes. We might say that Poland and Central and Eastern Europe are on a kind of "bend" that has been going on for some time now. In many countries, after years of atheisation, the role of religion was very much strengthened, in terms of individual as well as, for instance, political life.

Exactly. For a while one might have expected that we'd follow a secularising model. At a point sociologists woke up from this secularising dream, but average people might have thought that there'd be a departure from religion. But that's not quite the case, either in our own backyard or elsewhere.

In Poland this is clearly visible, especially regarding the role of religion and the Church as an institution in public life and in relations with politics. It's interesting that for years the Church's involvement in political affairs was regarded favourably by the general Polish population. But after 1989 the opposite was true. We continue to see very high indicators of criticism and rejection of political engagement of the Church (almost 70% of Poles). But despite that the Church remains involved.

Would Poles like to restrict the role of religion to the private sphere?

No, not to the private sphere, I don't think. That's a well-phrased question. Poles don't really expect the Church to stay quiet on various more general issues of importance for Poles, but I'm certain – and I say this based on the results of research – that politics and political engagement are a critical area. Most Poles do not want the Church to have a particular influence on political decisions. What they do expect, and value highly, is that the Church's be engaged in charity work. They also very much appreciate strictly religious activities. And here we observe a certain dissonance, when they go to church and rather than sermons on eschatological issues, salvation, how to live one's life, they hear who to vote for, which party is good, and which not. I think a major reason for this is the fairly widespread conviction that politics is something that divides. The young people in the biographical research I conducted go as far as saying, "politics is dirty", "politics stinks", "we don't want politics". They reject interest in politics, so they'd like to see the Church as the bearer of religious messages, the source of support and meaning of life by referring to the highest values and central dogmas, such as belief in God. This is how they see the two functions of the Church: the prophetic, religious, evangelical function, and charity – supporting the poor and needy. And indeed it is true that the Church fulfils charity functions, providing strong support to social welfare in Poland.

On the other hand, Poles do not expect the Church to have much influence on individual moral decisions. In keeping with what is characteristic of modern societies, they believe that, irrespective of a person's religiosity, or being a Catholic, they should have autonomy in making moral choices.

At the beginning you mentioned strictly political topics, meaning parliamentary or presidential elections, for example, or naming candidates, which the Church has been doing with varying degrees of openness since the 1990s. But ideological issues are also political topics. At the moment you are in charge of a research project on biopolitics, and in fact biopolitical topics, as the name suggests, are becoming political topics in a strict sense.

They've always been political topics, but now, in times of such tumultuous changes, they are especially sensitive to politicisation. And this is no accident, but related to the constitution of the law. This is an area of strictly political decisions and processes, meaning the tasks of the government and parliament. The Roman Catholic hierarchy would like to have a direct influence on these decisions. They interfere in various ways here, and often also use transcendental pressures and sanctions. A good example came not so long ago, with the question of then President Bronisław Komorowski's signing of the convention against women, when the Church hierarchy denied him the right to being a good Catholic. Reading between the lines, this smacked of threats of excommunication. It was an attempt to exert direct influence on legislative processes. Incidentally, we see similar cases with other biopolitical issues, such as civil unions and IVF.

So the research project that you at the Department of Social Research on Religion are carrying out seems to be very topical…

Yes, I'm very pleased that we're carrying out this project. Our six-person team is working very intensively – alongside me are Dr Katarzyna Zielińska, Dr Agnieszka Dyczewska, Dr Marcin Zwierżdżyński, the two PhD candidates Inga Koralewska and Joanna Mleczko – attempting to cover the entire field of biopolitics and public discourse in the field of biopolitics. We're interested not just in the contents and positions on corporeality, sexuality, the limits of life and death, present in the biopolitical discourse, e.g. regarding abortion, IVF, pornography, euthanasia, civil unions. We're also interested in how they are legitimised and what role is played by references to religion – be they positive, critical or neutral – in these legitimisations.

The question of legitimisation is linked to an article published long ago, in the late 1960s, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann's "Sociology of Religion and Sociology of Knowledge", which once upon a time, long ago, I was very much into. It used to be the case that when I got into a text I couldn't stop thinking about what it was about, and that kept me awake at night. Sadly I must say that this sensitivity has with time, unfortunately, become dulled [laughs].

Do you get more sleep?

It's a great shame. But to return to the article, Berger and Luckmann write that the most important question for a sociologist of religion is what legitimises reality. I have the sense that we often forget about this. Even if we assume that the role of religion is changing, that it is becoming as invisible as Luckmann claims, and losing its connections with the institution, the religious function continues to be what legitimises and gives meaning to our reality. That's why the question of these references to religion in political discourse in Poland seems extremely interesting to me. What discursive positions can be identified when it comes to references to religion? In the final stage of the project, based on nationwide representative research, we want to test whether the Polish population share these positions, and to what extent. How people perceive the mechanisms of legitimisation and references to religion… I expect that this will also tell us more about mechanisms in society as a whole.

In that case we'll eagerly await the research results. Thank you for talking to us.

Thank you.

Interview by Anna Szwed

 

Published Date: 04.05.2016
Published by: Anna Szwed