According to the Statistical Yearbook of the Catholic Church in Poland, 29.6 percent of Catholics attended Sunday Mass last year, up slightly from 29.2 percent in 2023.
The share of worshippers receiving Holy Communion also rose, from 14 percent to 14.6 percent.
Both figures, however, remain well below pre-pandemic levels, when attendance stood at nearly 37 percent.
The most striking change was a sharp fall in confirmations.
Just under 213,000 people were confirmed in 2024 – a drop of almost 28 percent year on year.
Church weddings also declined significantly, down 11.6 percent to 68,300 ceremonies.
Baptisms fell by 7.5 percent, while first communions dipped by 1.5 percent, compared to the previous year.
Regional differences remain pronounced.
The highest Mass attendance was recorded in the Tarnów diocese, southeastern Poland, at over 62 percent, while the lowest was in the Szczecin–Kamień archdiocese, northwestern Poland, below 18 percent.
Rural parishes reported far higher attendance than urban ones.
The yearbook also points to a gradual contraction of the clergy.
The number of diocesan priests fell to 23,274, down from 23,612 a year earlier, while the number of seminarians – students training for the Catholic priesthood – fell again, from 1,039 in 2023 to 984 in 2024.
Numbers of nuns and religious houses also continued to decrease.
Participation in school religious education dropped again.
In the 2024/25 school year, 75.6 percent of pupils attended religion classes, compared with over 80 percent two years earlier, with the lowest rates recorded in large cities.
The data were presented by the Institute for Catholic Church Statistics (SAC), which has tracked religious practice in Poland for more than five decades.
(ał)
Source: PAP