Congregations in Poland are falling, says a new report by the Polish Roman Catholic church. According to the Catholic Church’s Institute of Statistics, in the 1980s, one out of every two Poles professed regular attendance at Sunday Mass.
Now, numbers have dropped to 41 percent.
The biggest congregations of church-goers are reported to be in southern Poland, especially in the Tarnów and Kraków dioceses, where some 70% of faithful attend Mass every Sunday.
In the Łódź, central Poland, congregations have fallen to a modest 30 percent.
However, in respect of 2009, turnout has improved and priests also point out that growing numbers of people take Communion at Mass (now 17 percent) which means that they are more conscious of their faith.
The annual church census is held on a Sunday every year in October or November.SIC: NPL