Twenty years have passed since the end of communism in Poland and there are signs that the institution that led the struggle against the regime, the Catholic Church, is under threat in the modern democratic consumerist society.
Under communism, becoming a priest was a step up the social ladder.
But now the number of young men entering seminaries is falling, and a survey suggests that more than half of the country's serving priests would like to do away with celibacy to have a wife and family.
According to the findings of Professor Jozef Baniak, a sociologist who specialises in religion at the department of theology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, more than 12% even admitted they were presently living in stable relationships with women.
In the land that produced the late Pope John Paul II, most churches are still full on Sundays.
But Polish society has been changing rapidly, and according to Father Wieslaw Dawidowski, an Augustinian friar in Warsaw, that is reflected in the behaviour of its priests.
"What worries me is the number of priests who are living a second life that is working as a Catholic priest which presumes to be a celibate, and at the same time having an affair with a woman," he said. >>> By Adam Easton, BBC News, Warsaw | Sunday, February 15, 2009
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