THERE is muttering of a revolution in Poland.
Conservative circles talk of an assault on the Catholic Church which cuts to the very heart of the nation, and fear a fraying of the bonds that for decades, if not centuries, have tied Catholicism and the Polish nation together.
The spark for this fretful talk has been a government proposal to cut state subsidies to the Church.
Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, has raised the prospect of lopping off £17 million from public money allocated to a priests’ pension scheme.
The government has said it will give people the right to choose to donate 0.3 per cent of their income tax to a special religious fund.
The prime minister says the proposals are justified because the state needs to save money and they provide an equitable element to pension reforms that will result in all Poles having to toil longer before being able to retire.
But to the religious community the proposals are a brazen attack on a body that was at the forefront of Poland’s struggle against communism, which gave the world Pope John Paul II and, officially, provides spiritual guidance to the 90 per cent of Poles who declare themselves as Catholic.
Conservative alarmists argue that the supposed attack is also an assault on the Polish nation.
They say Catholicism has for so long provided a national, cultural and spiritual rallying point for Poles that it is neither possible nor desirable to separate the two so an attack on one is an attack on all.
Adding to their fears has been the rise of a proudly anti-clerical party.
Supporting gay rights, relaxed abortion laws and calling for crucifixes to taken down from public buildings, the Janusz Palikot Movement has gone where no other Polish party has ever dared to go.
But far from being washed away by a tide of religious indignation it has profited from it.
The party stormed to third place in general elections last year and has since managed to expand its support as younger voters, tired of the hallowed status afforded to the Church and its influence on society, give it their backing.
Put everything together and the Catholic Church in Poland has much to be worried about.
There will be no dramatic shunning of religion in Poland as bonds between the Church and Poles still remain strong but the synchronicity between Church and nation has gone.
Many Poles now no longer regard Catholicism as an inseparable part of being Polish, and the number of these people will grow as Poland’s absorption into a variegated and increasingly secular Europe continues apace.