Poland's powerful Roman Catholic church, which is raising its voice ahead Sunday's general election, risks benefiting a new anti-clerical party led by a tycoon-provocateur.
"The church in Poland is very political. It openly supports the conservative Law and Justice party" (PiS) of former prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leading commentator Adam Szostkiewicz told AFP.
"The majority of bishops are partial to its nationalist and Catholic populist rhetoric. It's in their mind-set. And only the PiS corresponds to this by insisting it is the sole guardian of the Polish Catholic state in politics," Szostkiewicz explains.
Although Poland remains among Europe's most devout nations, there is a growing tide of young liberal-minded voters who want a more clearly defined boundary between church and state.
Enter Janusz Palikot, a flamboyant 46-year-old philosophy graduate who leapt into politics after making his fortune from a vodka distillery.
He has made waves by advocating the liberalization of Poland's restrictive abortion law, providing free access to contraception, legalizing soft drugs and gay marriage under a broader partnership law.
Scoring seven to eight per cent in the polls, his openly anti-clerical party appears set to become the first of its kind to surpass the five per cent threshold needed to enter parliament.
The church's outspoken political rhetoric appears only to help his ratings.
Last year, priests in the deeply devout country threw their support behind Kaczynski in a snap presidential election in the wake of the air crash death in Russia of his identical twin, the then president Lech Kaczynski.
The PiS leader however lost to liberal challenger Bronislaw Komorowski.
Since the April 10, 2010 crash which claimed swathes of the Polish elite, including the central bank governor and military chiefs of staff, "clergy and militant Catholics have increasingly cast doubt on the moral legitimacy of the government" of centrist Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Szostkiewicz observes.
Archbishop and chair of the Polish Episcopate Jozef Michalik recently charged that there was "an onslaught against the cross and religious symbols. People pushed toward Satanism," bemoaning that "the Bible is trampled and holy symbols desecrated."
Clergymen also want those politicians who did not back a recent attempt to impose a total ban on abortion to be barred from running for office.
Archbishop Michalik also urged the faithful to consider how candidates "measure up to the teachings of the Bible when voting."
Nor have the bishops minced words over how they feel about Palikot's political ascent.
"We don't have the right to elect someone who supports legalising gay marriage, abortion and euthanasia. It's forbidden!," Bishop Stanislaw Napierala recently charged in a statement endorsed by bishops in the "defence of the dignity of the human being and life from conception to natural death."
In his defence, Palikot has spoken with equal candor.
"We're fighting the church which is both a political party and a financial corporation. The church should not get involved in politics nor accumulate wealth," he insisted at a recent campaign meeting in Poznan, western Poland, a traditional bastion of more liberal voters.
"His appearance on the political scene has mobilized church opponents," political analyst Eryk
Mistewicz told AFP.
The vodka baron is lobbying for an end to public funding for the church, dropping catechism classed in public schools, reversing the restitution of church properties nationalized under communism and a clear division of church and state by banning clergy from official state ceremonies.
Palikot is a rebel, "who has no regard for the church, for the authorities or for money. He has a frankness missing among the leftist social democrats and if the trends in the surveys will be confirmed, we can't rule out that he may become a key element of a future coalition," Mistewicz says.