from elsewhere Poland


More Catholics staying out of pews


decades, according to newly released data, following a sharp fall in priestly and monastic vocations in the predominantly Roman Catholic country. ‘Looking back over 30 years’ research, we must clearly confirm that fewer people are now going to church,’ said Revd Wojciech Sadlon, a priest from Poland’s Roman Catholic Pallotine order.


C ‘


But this isn’t a drastic fall – compared to other countries of Europe,


we can still be proud and consider ourselves the mainstay of Christianity.’ Te data, collected in the last three months of 2009, showed a slight recovery in Mass atendance in 2009 to 41.5% of the population of 38 million, compared to 40.4% in 2008. However, they also confirmed a ‘slow but steady fall’ in all 44 Roman Catholic dioceses over the past decade, running as high as 9.2% in some parts of the country. Te priest was seaking


aſter presenting the figures during a press


Te Traditional Anglican Church in Britain (TTAC)


Part of the worldwide


Traditional Anglican Communion


In 1994 a Concordat was signed to work with FiF


which we still honour. Te TTAC is not a new Church but a genuine continuation of the ancient Church of England before 1992/4 when the Biblical Doctrine o f the Apostolic Ministry was changed. We believe, teach and practise the Catholic and Apostolic Faith of


Jesus Christ as


taught in Holy Scripture, the seven Ecumenical Councils, and the Book of Common Prayer.


Episcopal Visitor: Bishop David Moyer SSC Vicar General: Canon I Gray 01673 885068


Area Deans:


(north) Canon I Westby 07941085462 (mid) Canon I Gray 01673 885068 (south) Canon J Maunder 01329 230330


(Wales & west mid) Fr B Gill 01544 267063 Diocesan Office: 01522 572779


www.thetraditiondanglicanchurch.org.uk 26 ■ newdirections ■ July 2010


hurch atendance is dropping in Poland for the first time in


conference at the Polish Bishops’ Conference secretariat. He told Poland’s Catholic Information Agency that sociologists of religion had identified numerous causes for the decline in church atendance, including cultural and social change, and problems in the church’s pastoral work. He noted that Poland’s pracising faithful remain largely rooted in country communities rather than in large towns and cities, but that ‘pessimistic predictions’ about a sudden drop in participation had not so far been borne out. Te report followed growing


concern over an accompanying decline in priestly vocations in Poland, with 687 Poles beginning first-year seminary training at the end of 2009, 5% fewer than in 2008. Te number of women wishing to become Catholic nuns has also plummeted, with around 300 beginning pre- novitiate studies in 2009, compared to 723 a decade ago, while 28 convents closed during the year. Te director of the Polish church’s Statistics


Institute, Witold


Zdaniewicz, said that about 45% of Poles had atended church regularly in 1991–2007 and he believes the current downward trend will continue. ‘But religiousness is a process and it’s always hard to discern unambiguous tendencies. At certain periods, we can seak of a fall or an increase. But these are always just hypotheses, and we have to wait to see whether time confirms them.’ However, a Polish member of the


Vatican’s Papal Council for Culture, Krzystof Zanussi, said the decline was a consequence of post-communist Westernization and suggested the church needs new ways of responding to popular religious and pastoral needs.


‘We’ve been used to having


strong spiritual leaders, and we don’t seem to have maintained the high standards we set ourselves when times were hard,’ Zanussi, a film director, said in an interview. ‘Religious decline doesn’t have to be the inevitable price of freedom and modernization –


people are still strongly Christian in their thinking here. But we seem to have become more frivolous as we’ve become wealthier and more secure.’ Priestly vocations doubled in Poland aſter the 1978 election of the Polish pope, John Paul II, peaking in 1985–7, and currently account for a fiſth of the Roman Catholic church’s total in Europe, where many Catholic dioceses depend on Polish priests to help make up for local pastoral shortages. Jonathan Luxmoore


Ecumenical News International USA


Jefferts Schori responds to sanctions


the decision by Lambeth Palace to remove Episcopalians serving on international ecumenical dialogues as ‘unfortunate…it misrepresents who the Anglican Communion is.’ Jefferts Schori’s comments were


P


made during a press conference at the Anglican Church of Canada’s General Synod 2010 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Before the sanctions were imposed on


Te Episcopal Church, as a consequence for having consecrated a lesbian bishop, Jefferts Schori said she had writen a leter to Archbishop Rowan Williams expressing her concern. ‘I don’t think it helps dialogue to remove some people from the conversation,’ she said shortly aſter addressing General Synod. ‘We have a variety of opinions on these issues of human sexuality across the communion… For the archbishop of Canterbury to say to the Methodists or the Lutheran [World] Federation that we only have one position is inaccurate. We have a variety of understandings and no, we don’t have consensus on hot buton issues at the moment.’ On 7 June, the Revd Canon


Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, informed Te Episcopal Church representatives serving on Anglican dialogues


residing Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has described


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