In 2024, only 50.4 percent of all wedding couples married in front of a Catholic altar, according to the new annual report published on Tuesday by the national statistics institute of the Catholic Church.
49.6 percent of the marriages took place exclusively in a registry office or in another religious community.
In 2015, the proportion of Catholic weddings in all marriages was still 71.1 percent, in 2023 at 52.9 percent.
"The decline in sacramental marriages is a consequence of cultural change," said the director of the church's statistics institute, Marcin Yevdokimov, at the presentation of the yearbook.
Much less confirmations
The number of companies also declined significantly. In 2024, there were 27.6 percent fewer than in 2023, according to the yearbook.
According to Yevdokimov, the declines in baptisms and the First Communion largely correspond to the demographic development.
On the other hand, the number of worshippers has increased slightly. Last year, 29.6 percent of Catholics went to Mass on Sundays, up from 29.0 percent in 2023. There was another minus in religious education in schools and kindergartens.
In the school year 2024/25, 75.6 percent of children and young people participated nationwide. In the previous school year it was still three percentage points more, in 2018/19 the rate was 88 percent. In grades nine to twelve, only 48.3 percent attended religious education.
Only half as many priest candidates
In pastoral care in the 10,352 Polish parishes, 18,170 priests worked last year. In 2018 there were still significantly more, namely 20,577. In the same period, the number of seminarians preparing for priestly ordination halved: from 1,985 in 2018 to 984 last year.
These changes in Poland should be considered against the background of broader global processes, according to the director of the Church’s Statistical Institute.
"Then we see a similar dynamic." There is no information on the frequency of church disputes in the yearbook – as always.