I'm afraid I'm not familiar enough with the institution to give a proper response. To me, many of their (Polish Episcopate's) actions are illogical and a net lo

I'm afraid I'm not familiar enough with the institution to give a proper response. To me, many of their (Polish Episcopate's) actions are illogical and a net loss to the community they're supposed to foster. I don't think that the Vatican necessarily has that much power over the Polish Episcopate. It seems like they operate as an association of non-profits all across the world and every single organization operates independently, within a rough framework. I live in one of the largest cities, haven't ever really been a church-goer. Going through all the sacraments was just a traditional thing you'd do. A decade ago, I don't remember hearing anything political in my local church. Sure, I heard some pretty obnoxious homophobic stuff, saw "exorcisms", but it was always somewhat neutral. However over the past few years, I've heard a lot of stories about rabid priests demonizing "the other side" (be it the other parties, "the LGBT plague" etc.), saying that the only way towards salvation is voting for PiS. Maybe it was a very vocal minority that was amplified by the media (look, priest X is doing this stuff! how terrible!). Eventually it seemed like that behaviour was normalized and the attitude of the people towards the Church became even more radicalized. Right now, the percentage of people who claim they're religious is plummeting. People who disagree with PiS (and the behaviour of the Church) are pulling their kids from "Religion" / Catechesis lessons, mostly in large cities. In my community, the schools have to group up multiple classes to even have groups of 10. How do you fight it? Well, you give a ton of funding to "patriotic causes", which are primarily promoting Catholicism, militarism / far-right, nationalistic narratives (the government is contributing to this now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB2XRK_Xb6g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB2XRK_Xb6g). The trade-off seems to be replacing your average church-goes / people who only go to the church for baptisms / First Communion / marriages, with Polish "patriots" - nationalists full of hatred towards anyone who's not white, religious and preferably voting for the Populist-Nationalists or Conservative-Liberals (who banded up with actual neonazis???). Arguably, I think that financially it could be a net positive for the Episcopate - they're getting public funding (for now) and possibly acquiring new, radicalized, loyal followers. Disclaimer: It probably _is_ a very loud minority. Unfortunately it's also the minority that appears to control the Church leadership. I feel sorry for the legitimately honest and good people I met through the Church, who are now getting grouped up with xenophobes.