The Avant-Garde of the Catholic Church? Catholic Student Groups at the Dominican Churches in Poznań and Krakow, Poland

Abstract

The author analyzes the organization and activities of Catholic student groups during and after the communist period in Poland as an example of the transformation of religious life in response to the challenges of modernity. She argues that the student groups organized by Dominican fathers in Poznań and Kraków were the avant-garde of the Catholic Church: they pioneered liturgical reform, social activism among the laity, the ecumenical movement, the introduction of popular culture into the churches and charismatic renewal. This contradicts the image of a closed, “traditional” and “conservative” Church behind the Iron Curtain. She also maintains that the history of the Dominican-organized student groups mirrors the history of the relations between the state and the Catholic Church in Poland: these groups were banned during the Stalinist period, restored after political liberalization in 1956, and pushed towards political activism in the late 1970s. After 1989, they were again seeking new priorities.