“The Churches overtook politics”. The contribution of religious factors and faith-based initiatives to Polish-German reconciliation

Abstract More than half-century long process of reconciliation between Poland and Germany can be recognized as one the most exceptional contemporary examples of the rebuilding of relations both socially and politically. The fact that the reconciliation process between “eternal enemies”, Poland and Germany, succeeded is considered in metaphysical categories a ‘miracle of reconciliation’. The essence of this process was well summarized in 2015 in the Common Statement of the President of Poland Andrzej Duda and the President of Germany Joachim Gauck in the words “the Churches overtook politics”. This article aims to outline the contribution of the religious element as a significant factor in t…

BRIDGING THE NATION AND THE STATE: CATHOLIC CHURCH IN POLAND AS POLITICAL ACTOR

One of the most recognized features of social-political reality in Poland is the role of Catholicism as the determinant of national-political identity and of Catholic Church as the influential political actor. Being undoubtedly peculiar Polish case can be viewed as the example of the religiosity intertwined with national and civil identity existent in different forms in the CEE (Central and Eastern Europe) region. The article aims at casting specifics of Polish case in the wider context of religious-political nexus in CEE stressing the distinctness of the region compared to some other parts of Europe. The conducted analysis focuses on the evolution of Church-state relations in Poland displa…

Religious Engagement and the Migration Issue: Towards Reconciling Political and Moral Duty

The increasingly acknowledged post-secular perspective has resulted in the emergence of some new approaches theorizing this phenomenon. One such approach has been the concept of religious engagement, which calls for the redefinition of the perception of religious non-state actors towards including them as important partners in the process of identifying and realizing political goals. According to this view, due to the multidimensional role played by religious communities and non-state religious actors, they need to be recognized as pivotal in creating a new form of knowledge generated through encounter and dialogue of the political decision-makers with these subjects. Among numerous others,…

Dealing with a Trauma Burdened Past: between Remembering and Forgetting

Recognition that societies will not be able to build a future as long as they do not face the ‘demons of the past’ has become a kind of universal truth over the last decades of the 20th Century (Gibney et al., 2008, p. 1). This view, though challenging and ambiguous, is reflected in the globally present attempts to improve or rebuild relations within and between different communities at the domestic and international level. The question concerning, on the one hand, the essence and most essential elements and, on the other hand, the instruments and the limitations of rebuilding relations, as well as the political implications of those processes have become the broad area of interest and the …

Annika ElisabetFrieberg. Peace at All Costs: Catholic Intellectuals, Journalists, and Media in Postwar Polish–German Reconciliation. New York: Berghahn Books, 2019.

Post-Secular Identity? Developing a New Approach to Religion in International Relations and IR Studies

In spite of the increasing presence of religion in international relations with various publications observing this presence and numerous authorities calling for the inclusion of religion into mainstream research, there is no universal consent to recognize religion’s role in IR. In our opinion, the only way to reconcile IR with the international reality in which religion has been and will remain present in the foreseeable future is for the researchers themselves to construct—especially those oriented towards broad, non-Western perspective—a new face of the discipline, the face which in this article we call the post-secular identity of IR study. Assuming that identity is first and foremost a…

Towards “global zero”: the role of the Holy See in the campaign on nuclear disarmament

On 7 July 2017 at the UN headquarters in New York the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted, the first multilateral legally-binding instrument for nuclear disarmament negotiated in the last twenty years.  The very signing of the Treaty must be seen as an extraordinary achievement because it represents a historic step in the seven decades long debate on nuclear weapons. One of the most significant achievements of the decade-long campaign is the engagement of civil society and non-state actors to such a degree that it was recognized through the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). The crucial supporter of the cam…