Global Journal of Human-Social Science, A: Arts and Humanities, Volume 22 Issue 8

IV. T he P opulist T oolkit Despite the multiple convergences explored in the previous section, there are populist regimes, some of them avowedly Catholic, that see liberalism as an archenemy of Catholicism. They tend to associate freedom with corruption and decadence. Consequently, they assume it has to be granted under strictly delimited restrictions. They see freedom as a concession. They believe that the public sector should be in charge of all aspects of human and social life. The right-wing populist dichotomy between freedom and Catholicism is particularly surprising in the case of post-Communist countries in Central Europe such as Poland. The Law & Justice Party (PiS) has defenestrated the legacy of John Paul II and has taken distance from other conservative-liberal intellectual icons such as Maciej Zieba, Adam Boniecki, Tadeusz Pieronek, Józef Ż yci ń ski,and others. A cursory review of PiS’s approach to liberal market democracy and the relationship between society and state reveals not only a profound disconnect, but also a de facto rejection of CST. 12 The table below presents an illustrative selection of public policies and administrative procedures used by PiS and other “illiberal democratic” populists. Illiberal Democracy Toolkit Legislative Engineering Re-introduction of rejected draft legislationLate night sessions Commissions’ sessions convened at the last minute Discrediting the legitimacy of autonomous bodies Propaganda Use of public TV as pro-government propaganda channel Percentage cap on foreign direct investments in the media Alliances with ultra-conservative media: TV Trwam, Radio Maryja Promotion of conspiracy theories Control of the Judicial Lowering retirement age for judges Setting up of a disciplinary chamber (DC) for the Supreme Court (SC): the power to suspend members of SC. DC members are nominated by the president. Disciplinary proceedings against judges who adhere to the guidelines of the European Court of Justice Moving judges to provincial courts as a disciplinary measure Directed Economy Nepotism in public administration and strategic companies Blacklisting of companies Nepotism and clientelism in public procurement and publicadmnistration Debt conversion from foreign currencies to local currencies Public Morality “LGBT free zones” Tolerance of ultra-right violence Clampdown on pro-EU and pro-liberal protest Administrative fines for displaying LGBT flags on private property Not only does the anti-liberal populist regime in Poland has negative impacts on the quality of democracy, and international positioning of the country, but also has not led to an upturn in religious practices despite PiS’s avowed Catholicism. According to the Institute of Statistics of the Catholic Church, only 36.9% of believers attend Sunday Mass, and only 16.7% take communion in 2021. Both indicators have had a downward tendency since 1990s. Additionally, every year the Catholic Church in Poland registers around 500 official individual apostasies. 13 The same trend is confirmed by CBOS (Centrum Badania Opinii Publicznej) which shows that the percentage of believers who attend Sunday Mess declined from 42% in 2015 to 35% in 2021 (the period of Law & Justice governments) (CBOS, 2022). According to another study by CBOS conducted before the parliamentary elections in Poland in 2019, “almost two-fifths of all respondents (38%) believe that the Catholic Church in Poland was involved on the side of some political party or parties before the last election. They almost unanimously declare that it supported the Law and Justice” (EKAI, 2019). 12 (Grygiel, 2014). (Stine, 2021). 13 (Orlikowski, 2021). (ISKK, 2021). © 2022 Global Journals Volume XXII Issue VIII Version I 5 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2022 A Catholic Liberalism: An Anti-Populist Proposal