Religion Being Removed From Polish Public Life Without Being Banned

No one in Poland has banned the teaching of religion in schools. No law has been passed, no constitutional amendment adopted, and no concordat with the Holy See renounced. Yet a series of regulatory decisions is making religious instruction less accessible and less significant within the public school system. The Polish case illustrates a broader institutional phenomenon: administrative secularisation—reducing religion’s place in public life through technical rules rather than an explicit democratic decision to exclude it.