Poland

Poland provides another good example, in some ways purer than Ireland, of a state that has maintained a tie between nationalism and religion (Corona 2000; Curtis 1994; Davies 1982; Dziewanowski 1977). Poland is, and has seemingly always been, Catholic. Throughout the history of the Polish state, one finds quotes and claims similar to Roman Dmowski’s above. In whatever way it is examined, Poland stands out as Catholic. The wider European secularism has been avoided here. Jose Casanova indicates that “The typical positive correlation of education, industrialization, urbanization, and proletarianization with secularization either did not obtain in Poland or was significantly attenuated” (Casanova 1994: 93). Thus, Polish nationalism provides another case in which religion has maintained an undeniable presence. Casanova goes on to point out the similarities between the Irish and Polish cases:

Catholic Poland, like Catholic Ireland, is an example of a Catholic country, which, in the absence of the typical fusion of absolutism and caesaropapism, deviates significantly from what David Martin has termed “the French-Latin pattern of secularization.”