Why you should care . . .
Imagine this: a right-wing populist party comes to power, promising to protect the nation's Catholic roots, stand up for family values and reject the liberal elite.
There is soon an attempt to put a blanket ban on abortion.
The President declares same-sex marriage will never be legalised.
Heads roll in the public service and at state TV and radio stations.
There's a refusal to accept refugees from nearby nations — part of the concern is that many are Muslims.
Community groups say xenophobia, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism are becoming more common.
An increasingly vocal far-right fringe movement grows, inspiring people with extreme views across the continent.
A new law is introduced, which leading academics worry will make it difficult to challenge the Government's preferred version of history — powerful allies are upset.
Then there is the judicial overhaul.
In two years, 13 pieces of legislation are passed that observers believe undermine the independence of the country's courts.
Legal experts say the justice system can now be stacked with political appointees, including the court that rules on the validity of election results.
But this is not some imaginary scenario — it's all happened in Poland since 2015.
Separately some of these measures may not seem particularly surprising.
Combined, it's easy to see why the European Union, which prides itself on values of liberty, democracy, freedom and the rule of law, is very worried.
Many fear Poland is now on the road from liberal democracy to authoritarianism.
"We are in what I would call an autocratic drift," said Jacek Kucharczyk from the Institute of Public Affairs, a policy think tank in Warsaw.
"It's a bigger process of dismantling democratic checks and balances and introducing what political scientists call majoritarian democracy, so a direct rule of parliamentary majority with little concern for the views of the minority."
It's difficult to make generalisations about the views of ordinary Polish voters, but the country is deeply polarised.
"On almost every issue, you currently have a small majority on side of the Government and an almost equally same size opposing it," Mr Kucharczyk said.
The political opposition though is split on the best way forward, while the ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) has capitalised on the division and rapidly implemented its plans.
The view from the ground
Adam Zych, a successful Krakow businessman, is in favour of about "90 per cent" of the Government's actions.
"It is helping families with extra money and payments, it is doing things for ordinary people, not just the wealthy liberals, this is one reason why it is popular," Mr Zych said.
"The European media is biased … and people in other countries don't get a good picture of what we are doing here.
"Perhaps this is partly why we have fights at the moment."
Poland's biggest fight is with EU bosses over the controversial court system changes.
The Government argues the judicial system is inefficient, slow and still home to "communist" judges who presided over Soviet-era cases.
But the EU Commission is convinced the rule of law is at serious risk.
It has started an unprecedented process that could eventually see Poland face sanctions or be stripped of EU voting rights.
"Let them do this, it will bring more people to us," said Robert Winnicki, the sole MP from the far-right National Movement.
He represents a section of society that wants Poland — and fellow black sheep Hungary — to keep defying the EU's wishes to maintain an increasingly illiberal axis in the east.
In particular, Mr Winnicki is worried the EU will weaken the foundations of Polish society by encouraging an "invasion" of Muslim refugees.
"It's a big thing to say now but I think western Europe will eventually have a civil war between native citizens and Muslim, African immigrants when a big financial crisis hits," he said.
"I want to protect Poland from this … Pol-exit would be a good thing."
That view is still very much in a minority.
There's enormous support for EU membership in Poland, partly because the nation is the single biggest beneficiary of infrastructure funding.
Mainstream right-wing politicians want to change the EU, not leave it.
"After a long time, Poland is no longer weak," said Law and Justice (PiS) MP Arkadiusz Mularczyk.
"We want to create our politics in the European Union and defend our interests, this is why we have conflict."
The idea that a country should be able to enjoy the economic benefits of the EU without accepting all the conditions that come with membership is common among nationalist movements at the moment.
But the Government's liberal opponents fear the approach will eventually lead to growing Euroscepticism.
"I am worried this Government's confrontational approach will distance us from Europe," said Konrad Korzeniowski, an activist with anti-government group Obywatele RP.
"But Poland's history and geography tells us, if we drift from the EU … unfortunately I think there is only one way for this country to go and that's east towards Putin [Russia]."
"It's terrifying if you think about it."
Where to next for Poland and the EU?
In December, the EU executive gave Poland three months to reverse the judicial overhaul.
Since then there have been a few indications that some sort of agreement may eventually be reached.
But this dispute could still have serious consequences for both Poland and the EU.
If the union doesn't act to defend democratic principles, its credibility will suffer around the world.
If Poland continues down its current path, it could be hit by EU budget cuts or become increasingly isolated politically.
A few years ago it was a poster child for the economic potential of European integration; the eighth-largest country by GDP and sixth-largest by population, it seemed destined to one day take its place at the union's top table.
Now, it is quickly becoming something of a pariah.
Instead of making Poland great again, populism could squander some of the nation's potential and see it remain closer to the edges, rather than the heart, of European decision making.
Photographer: Michal Fludra/NurPhoto via Getty ImagesNurPhoto/NurPhoto
The Tuesday service at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in the small Polish town of Zakopane doesn’t normally have such a distinguished congregation.
But on this day last month, the president, prime minister and a government delegation joined a ceremony to affirm their country to be under the protection of the “immaculate heart of Mother Mary” against moral decay.
Even for one of the most pious nations in Europe and home to the continent’s largest statue of Jesus Christ, it was a notable declaration. It marked the governing Law & Justice party’s latest move to knit church and state closer together just a few months after Jesus was pronounced the country’s king by bishops at a service also attended by the president.
The Catholic Church is one of the “foundations of our identity, our way of life and of being Polish,” Party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski said two days before the Zakopane service. And some people, he added, are “in great pains” over that.
It comes down to the uneasy relationship between faith and power. Poland’s nationalists spent their first year in office replacing the heads of companies, the media and courts with their own people, drawing criticism in western Europe. It’s now trying to return a nation to its religious roots and giving priests unprecedented influence on politics and business in modern Poland.
Photographer: Janek Skarzynski/AFP via Getty Images
Executives and ministers regularly consult the church. The government’s favorite cleric is Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, who runs a network of businesses including a proselytizing radio station called Radio Maryja from the medieval city of Torun. The celebrity priest hosts economic seminars with the chiefs of state-run companies.
Elsewhere, the Archbishop of Gdansk named a priest as chaplain to Lotos SA, a government-controlled oil refiner and retailer in the city with 21 billion zloty ($5.6 billion) in annual sales. The managers of state-run utility Energa SA and the national mint also have “entrusted” their companies to “divine providence and the Mother Mary.”
“The Catholic Church in Poland is a group of interests within the government camp,” said Roman Backer, a political scientist at the Mikolaj Kopernik University in Torun, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) northwest of Warsaw. “The church has become very much dependent on the ruling party financially while for Law & Justice, the church is a precious source of voters. Thanks to that interdependence, the party has secured sustained political support.”
Kindred Spirits
While former communist Europe has been a fertile ground for organized religion since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the apparent determination to ally with the Church echoes the conflict playing out between urban elites and populist leaders in Turkey, Russia and even the U.S. under Donald Trump.
Trump stressed Poland’s religious traditions during a speech in Warsaw this month, saying that the nation overthrew communism nearly three decades ago by sticking to their faith. “Poles sang three simple words: ‘We Want God’,” he said.
Like Trump, Law & Justice came to power vowing to challenge the “liberal elite” and champion economic patriotism. The government also has promised to protect Poles from the terrorist threat it says refugees from the Middle East pose. It refuses to shelter the mostly Muslim migrants, with Kaczynski arguing they would spread disease and create ghettos because they are unable to adopt to Poland’s Catholic culture.
The European Union, which gives Poland more money than any other member, has lambasted the country for its increasing control of society. Last year, Poles took to the streets to protest, among other things, the banning of abortion in almost all circumstances.
Photographer: Adam Guz/Gallo Images Poland/Getty Images
The Catholic Church has long been a political force in Poland. Under the country’s own Pope John Paul II it was credited with helping Solidarity topple the regime in 1989. Political leaders always have attended church ceremonies. A cross hangs in the Polish Parliament’s main hall.
But it’s Law & Justice government’s relationship with Rydzyk that has gone too far, according to opponents such as former Solidarity leader Lech Walesa.
“If it weren’t for Father Rydzyk, they wouldn’t be here anymore,” Walesa said in an interview with newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza published on July 8. “Rydzyk is the most dangerous and the strongest element of this coalition. He’s supporting them and adding fuel to emotions.”
Kaczynski, who nominated loyalists President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Beata Szydlo for their posts, has said his party wouldn’t have won the election in October 2015 without the 72-year-old priest’s Radio Maryja.
Rydzyk, a member of the Redemptorist order, also founded a national television channel, a university and a geothermal energy company. He declined a request to be interviewed via his office. The Vatican, meanwhile, distanced itself from Rydzyk a while ago, saying in 2011 that he doesn’t speak for Catholics in Poland.
Blurred Lines
Yet there’s no doubting his public role, if not his influence.
In April, he hosted an economic seminar in Torun, holding private talks with Szydlo, several of her ministers and the chief executive officers of the biggest state-controlled companies. They included Zbigniew Jagiello, head of PKO Bank Polski SA, Poland’s largest bank, who praised the idea of the city becoming a forum for economics. The conference had sponsorship from PZU SA, the biggest insurer, while the company’s deputy CEO moderated the event.
“Father Rydzyk has crossed the line of priesthood a long time ago,” said Pawel Guzynski, a priest from the Dominican order. “Above all, he’s an activist, a politician and a businessman. Being a priest is just an addition.”
Rydzyk frequently attacks the EU for its liberalism, though he too has applied for European money. During his seminar, he praised Szydlo for changing Poland for the better even as “the post-communist mafia fights back.”
Weekly magazine Wprost said in February that businesses overseen by Rydzyk’s not-for profit organizations have amassed enough wealth to put him among the 100 richest Poles, if he officially owned them.
Environment Minister Jan Szyszko, who lectures at his university, defended him against the report, calling him a “charismatic visionary who influences the results of elections.” His sway over Poland, he wrote in an open letter, “is much bigger than his nominal rank of an ordinary priest.”
—with assistance from Wojciech Moskwa
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