Only 35.1 per cent of adults currently trust it very much or to some extent, according to a survey conducted by the opinion research institute IBRiS for the news agency PAP.
This is 4.3 percentage points less than in October 2024 and the institute's worst survey result for the church to date. 26.1 per cent said they had "no" trust in the Catholic Church, 21 per cent "rather not".
Together, that is just under half of the 1,067 respondents.
Opinion researcher Kamil Smogorzewski from IBRiS explained that the "erosion of trust" had accelerated. He advised the church to change its communication with society in order to regain at least some of the lost reputation.
In a commentary, the newspaper "Rzeczpospolita" blamed the loss of trust on bishops taking sides with one political camp and the church's handling of the scandal of sexual abuse of minors.
The Bishop of Sosnowiec, Artur Wazny, who is responsible for new evangelisation in the Polish Bishops' Conference, reacted to the survey results on the platform "X" with the words: "I am beating my chest, although I know that this is not enough."
He recalled that in 2016, the Catholic Church still enjoyed the trust of 58 per cent of adult Poles.