YOUTH AND SPIRITUALITY?

Abstract

Recently the attention of many commentators of social life has been attracted by the statistical research on the religiosity of Poles in the years 1992–2021 published by CBOS (Public Opinion Research Centre). According to this research, there has been a trend pointing at a decline in the level of religious belief and religious practice. The most rapid decrease was recorded in the number of practicing people in the 18–24 age group. In the context of the aforementioned changes Polish readers receive a monograph by Rev. Stanisław Suwiński, ‘The spirituality of youth in the perspective of evangelization’ (Bernardinum, Pelplin 2021) in which the author reflects on the spirituality of youth, with particular emphasis on the perspectives of evangelization in the Polish cultural context. Both the interdisciplinarity and the specific pragmatic nature of this book, given the context of the religious changes in Poland, encourage further reflection on the subject of research proposed by the author. This article critically examines the relationship between spirituality and religiousness of youth in the light of the monograph of Suwiński and other studies on this issue. Furthermore, the changing religiosity in Poland is presented in the perspective of statistical data in comparison with selected European countries and of the role of the technological revolution that shapes contemporary people. In such a context, the question about the spirituality of the youth becomes a contribution to a reflection not only on the religiosity of the young people but also on the fluctuations in Christian religiosity as such. The proposed philosophical interpretation of religiosity and its modifications in the perspective of the previously discussed social phenomena may become an argument in favor of the thesis about the unchanging “vitality of religion”.