Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected various domains of everyday life, including important religious rituals. In the Roman Catholic Church in Poland, the reception of Holy Communion was substantially altered. The suggestion of the Polish Episcopal Conference and diocesan bishops was to receive Holy Communion on the hand during the pandemic, while receiving on the tongue had been the default form before the pandemic. The present studies investigated whether alterations in the form of receiving Holy Communion during the pandemic resulted in intragroup negativity. A total of 376 Polish Roman Catholics participated in two online studies. The most ambivalent emotions toward their religious community were experienced by the followers who recognized reception of Holy Communion on the hand only. Intergroup bias occurred within the “hand only” and the “mouth only” groups and consisted in out-group favoritism (within the “hand only”) and out-group derogation (“mouth only”) in their perception of religious orientation. Intergroup empathy bias occurred in the “hand only” and “spiritual reception” groups, which reported less empathy toward those of the out-group (“mouth only”) infected with SARS-CoV-2. The highest legitimacy of the Church authority was agreed upon by the supporters of both forms of receiving Holy Communion.
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemic, declared so by the WHO on March 11th, has significantly affected large populations in terms of serious social, political, economic, and psychological aspects (Holmes et al 2020)
The present study demonstrated that among highly religious Christians in Poland, three separate groups could be distinguished depending on the beliefs about the proper form of receiving Holy Communion
The groups that included persons recognizing both forms of the reception and persons considering the reception of Holy Communion on the hand as proper were similar in number
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic, declared so by the WHO on March 11th, has significantly affected large populations in terms of serious social, political, economic, and psychological aspects (Holmes et al 2020). The pandemic has had a significant impact on the religious aspect of social life (Sulkowski and Ignatowski 2020). The pandemic caused unprecedented alterations in religious rituals and services (e.g., suspended public worship services during the Holy Week in the Roman Catholic Church; Vatican News 2020), which resulted in a sense of fear and isolation among the faithful (Parish 2020). The suggested form of receiving Holy Communion was one of the most important examples of ritual alterations due to the COVID-19 mitigation guidelines within the Roman Catholic Church in Poland (Sulkowski and Ignatowski 2020). The Church authorities strongly suggested reception of Holy Communion on the hand in order to prevent the spread of the virus, whereas the default form before the pandemic (i.e., in the mouth) was allowed only in particular cases (Polish Episcopal Conference 2020a)
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