Two years ago in this magazine, my cousin, Kaja Kowynia-Pietraszek, wrote about the double-edged sword that is growing up in a country – in her case Poland – where Catholicism is cultural. She wrote about how, because everyone around you is Catholic, you become lazy, not giving your religion much thought at all. She also wrote about how lucky she was to grow up in a city, Krakow, where there are over 100 Catholic churches to choose from just in the city centre itself. 

Growing up, I was fascinated by the way my Polish family operated around religion. Every Sunday my aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents would go to Mass, but no one ever went to the same Mass or indeed the same church (for me it was normal that I went with my parents or not at all). As soon as the children were old enough to go out on their own, off they would go to explore and decide at which church they felt most at home. They were trusted to go, with my aunts words, “God exists and you have to pray to him”, ringing in their ears. That was that. God exists. No further questions.

Discussion in my family has always been lively about which church has the most convenient Mass times, the shortest or the most accessible sermons, the kindest priest or the best music. You could argue that some of these are frivolous considerations, but I think it’s wonderful that people are interested. There are of course many people in Poland who have walked away from the church  in the past two decades (as former Herald editor Luke Coppen wrote in his recent Spectator article), but the churches are still packed to the brim, so it’s all relative.

I was in Krakow for Easter, which is a huge celebration in Poland, very much focused around the Church, as it should be. The highlight for me has always been the blessing of the food baskets by the priest on holy Saturday; my family does this at the Norbertine monastery. In the days leading up to Easter, children paint eggs, known as “pisanki”, which go in the baskets, along with bits of ham and sausage, horseradish, cheese, salt and Easter cake, all decorated with sprigs of seasonal plants. I enjoyed the fact that my two-year-old daughter’s first Polish word was “bazie”, pronounced “ba-jeh”, meaning pussy willow.

Krakow is not its usual self at the moment, now that one in four of its inhabitants are Ukrainians, most of whom have fled to the city in the past two months. Most of these refugees are living in the private homes of Polish people – I saw this first-hand. While I was there, my aunt, whose grandparents were murdered by Ukrainians in 1939, had unbegrudgingly given up her spare bedroom for a young Ukrainian woman and her daughter. At one point, I was called upon to present my two children as playmates for the little girl, Marusia.

I have another aunt in Poland who I have always been very proud of because she is a very beautiful and famous actress. What I didn’t fully appreciate about her before, however, was that she is also one of the most devout Catholics you will ever meet. A few years ago, she left the theatre she was associated with, at some expense to her career (she was an actress and professor there for many decades), in protest against the increasingly immoral direction it was taking. For the past 12 years she has directed an annual Passion play in Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, a famous Polish pilgrimage spot, which this year was attended by more than 70,000 people. 

Kalwaria Zebrzydowska is just one of many places in Poland steeped in holy mystery. It was, for example, an important place for John Paul II. When he was nine years old, just after the death of his mother, Karol Wojtyla, the future pope, was taken there by his father. Standing in front of a beautiful painting of Mary, mother of God, Wojtyla’s father said to his son: “This is now your mother.” Thirty years later, my own mother would be confirmed by Karol Wojtyla, who by this point was Archbishop of Krakow. 

As someone who straddles Britain and Poland, I think Poles are very lucky that Catholicism is their baseline. Nothing riles me more than (Christian) people saying they are not going to baptise their children, but instead let them choose their religion later (I hear this often among my contemporaries). Aside from the obvious liturgical obligation, baptising a child doesn’t stop it from venturing elsewhere later in life – many do – but it gives a person somewhere to come back to: a home if he loses his, and even a father and a mother, as John Paul II found, when his is gone.

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