Catholic Church in Poland records 1.3% fall in Sunday Mass attendance in 2019

December 11, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

CNA Staff, Dec 11, 2020 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- The number of people attending Sunday Mass in Poland fell by 1.3% in 2019 compared to the previous year, according to new figures released Thursday.

The Polish bishops’ conference announced Dec. 10 that 36.9% of the country’s Catholics took part in Sunday Masses last year, compared with 38.2% in 2018.

The figures, compiled by the Institute for Catholic Church Statistics, showed that 16.7% of baptized Catholics received Holy Communion in 2019, a decrease of 0.6% from the previous year when 17.3% received the Eucharist.

The 1.3% fall in Sunday Mass attendance in Poland is likely to worry the country’s bishops. Attendance also fell in 2018, but by 0.3% compared to the year before.

The Church lost unprecedented numbers of Catholics in other countries in Europe in 2019.

Earlier this month, bishops in Switzerland lamented a record exodus in 2019. The new figures revealed that the Catholic Church lost 31,772 members in last year — equivalent to 1.1% of the total membership of the Catholic Church in Switzerland.

A record number of Catholics also formally left the Church in Germany in 2019, according to official figures released in June. The statistics showed that 272,771 people exited the Catholic Church last year, a significant increase on the 2018 figure of 216,078.

Meanwhile in Austria, the number of people leaving the Church rose by 14.9% in 2019 compared to the previous year. A total of 67,583 people left in 2019, while 58,807 left in 2018.

The new figures showed that there were 372,900 baptisms in Poland in 2019, a decrease of almost 3.5% on 2018, when there were 386,000.

There were under 400,000 First Communions. There were also 382,500 Confirmations — considerably more than in 2018 due a change in the age of administering the sacrament.

There were 125,000 church marriages in 2019, compared with 133,000 the year before.

Fr. Wojciech Sadłoń SAC, director of the statistics institute, said: “The presented data is a statistical picture of the Church in 2019, which a few months later will enter the unique situation of an epidemic.”

This year has not only seen the disruption of Masses due to the pandemic, but also widespread protests targeting the Church following a landmark court ruling on abortion.

Sadłoń said: “The presented data indicate that the institutional framework of the Catholic Church in Poland is slightly weakening. After the period of intensive development of the structures and organization of the Church in Poland in the past decades, we entered the epidemic with a slightly weakening institutional strength.”

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Pope Francis opens two new laundromats for the homeless

November 5, 2023 Catholic News Agency 3
Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, papal almoner, after cutting the ribbon on a new “Pope’s Laundromat” for the homeless. / Credit: Holy See Press Office

Rome Newsroom, Nov 5, 2023 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Pope Francis opened two new laundromats for the homeless in the northern Italian city of Turin on Thursday, Nov. 2. 

The new facilities are part of an initiative launched in collaboration with the international consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble and the consumer electronics company Haier Europe, with the assistance of the Community of Sant’Egidio and Apostolic Almsgiving, the papal office of charitable activity. 

“With the two new laundries inaugurated in Turin we hope to be able to help many people in difficulty to improve their living conditions, starting from the possibility of taking care of their personal hygiene and that of their clothing,” said Riccardo Calvi, communications director for Procter & Gamble Italia.

The laundromats are located in the parish of San Giorgio Martire and the La Sosta welcome center in Turin’s city center and are operated by volunteers of Sant’Egidio.

The new facilities include washers and dryers donated by Haier as well as detergent. In addition to the laundry services, there are hot showers, and a full range of personal hygiene products will be available, such as shampoo, conditioners, body washes, razors, and shaving creams provided by Procter & Gamble. 

These services are “offered free of charge to the poorest people, in particular those without a fixed abode,” Calvi said. 

Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, papal almoner, joins future clients on the new papal laundromats for lunch. Credit: Holy See Press Office
Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, papal almoner, joins future clients on the new papal laundromats for lunch. Credit: Holy See Press Office

This is not the first such project that the pope has launched in Italy. In 2015 Pope Francis launched a barbershop for the poor, a service run by volunteers, to help provide essential grooming services for Rome’s indigent and homeless. 

This effort was followed by the first “Pope’s Laundromat,” which opened in Rome in 2017 and a second one in the Ligurian port city of Genoa in 2019. 

This initiative was born out of Pope Francis’ apostolic letter Misericordia et Misera, which was released at the conclusion of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy in 2016. 

“The Church must always be vigilant and ready to identify new works of mercy and to practice them with generosity and enthusiasm,” the letter reads.

“Let us make every effort, then, to devise specific and insightful ways of practicing charity and the works of mercy. Mercy is inclusive and tends to spread like wildfire in a way that knows no limits. Hence we are called to give new expression to the traditional works of mercy,” it continues. 

“[This initiative] is a concrete and tangible sign supported by the Apostolic Charity Office: A place and a service to give concrete form to charity and at the same time intelligence to the works of mercy to restore dignity to many people,” a press release said.

New washers and dryers at the recently opened papal laundromat in Torino, Italy. Credit: Holy See Press Office
New washers and dryers at the recently opened papal laundromat in Torino, Italy. Credit: Holy See Press Office

Polish Cardinal Konrad Krajewski has been at the helm of the pope’s charitable initiatives since becoming papal almoner in 2013.  

“When we help the poorest and most vulnerable, we are truly Christians, because we are the means of the Gospel,” Krajewski said. 

“This initiative, which is repeated over time, is a source of joy for me because this is a further possibility of being close to wounded humanity, a way to demonstrate the presence and closeness of God to the last,” he said.

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