The Catholic Church in Poland Takes a Stand on Surrogacy and Faces a Battle to Defend Religious Education Classes

(ZENIT News / Warsaw, 09.09.2026).- Poland’s Catholic bishops have opened the new academic year with strong warnings on two fronts that, at first sight, may appear unrelated: the commercialization of human reproduction and the shrinking space for religion in public education.

Behind both controversies lies a broader question that has become increasingly important in Poland’s cultural and political debate: what place should human dignity, parental rights and religious conviction occupy in a rapidly changing society?

In a statement issued on August 28, the Bioethics Expert Team of the Polish Bishops’ Conference described surrogacy as “gravely immoral” and called for decisive action to prevent Polish citizens from using the practice, whether at home or abroad.

The bishops’ objection goes far beyond the legal status of surrogacy. Their central concern is that the arrangement risks transforming both motherhood and childhood into objects of a contractual transaction.

The statement, issued on behalf of the bioethics panel by Auxiliary Bishop Józef Wróbel of Lublin, raises particular concern about the dignity of the child, the exploitation of economically vulnerable women and the possibility that international surrogacy arrangements may acquire characteristics comparable to human trafficking.

According to the bishops, crossing Poland’s borders does not solve the moral problem. A procedure that cannot be justified at home, they argue, does not become ethically acceptable simply because it is carried out in another jurisdiction.

The Polish episcopate also warns that the promises often made by the surrogacy industry concerning the delivery of a healthy child can create pressure for the elimination of unborn children diagnosed with genetic or developmental disorders. The bishops describe such a prospect as a particularly grave consequence of a system in which the expectations of commissioning adults may come into conflict with the unconditional dignity of the child.

Their argument also focuses on the position of women who agree to carry children for others. Formal consent, the statement insists, does not automatically remove the ethical problem when economic circumstances can influence a woman’s decision and her reproductive capacity becomes the subject of a commercial arrangement.

The bishops therefore reaffirm the Catholic Church’s longstanding teaching that surrogacy is incompatible with Christian moral principles. Catholic teaching holds that the deliberate separation of procreation from the marital relationship, particularly through the intervention of third parties, raises fundamental questions about the rights of children and the meaning of parenthood.

For the Polish bishops, the child cannot be understood as the object of a right or a service that can be obtained through a contract. Parenthood, they argue, cannot be reduced to a commercial relationship between biological, gestational and commissioning parties.

The episcopate has called on Poland’s authorities to act quickly to prevent citizens from resorting to surrogacy and to stop companies offering such services from operating in the country.

At the same time, the bishops are confronting another battle involving the country’s schools.

With the beginning of the 2026–2027 academic year, new regulations introduced by Poland’s Ministry of National Education have reduced religious instruction to one hour per week and generally require the classes to be scheduled either at the beginning or at the end of the school day.

The change has alarmed parents, teachers and Church leaders, particularly because religious education remains far from marginal in Polish society. According to the Institute for Catholic Church Statistics, 76 percent of Polish students attend religion classes.

The bishops argue that the new scheduling rules may make participation substantially more difficult, especially for children whose parents must coordinate transport or who live in rural areas.

One parent from Wschowa described how his daughter had previously faced a long gap between the end of her ordinary classes and the beginning of religious instruction, making attendance increasingly impractical. For families, the issue is not merely theoretical: when a class is placed outside the normal school schedule, a formal right to religious education can become difficult to exercise in practice.

Teachers have expressed similar concerns.

Aneta Rayzacher-Majewska, who is beginning her twenty-third year teaching religion, argues that religious education offers students a place to discuss difficult questions, explore their understanding of God and the Church, and become acquainted with the Christian roots of their culture.

Scheduling classes at the beginning or end of the day, she says, can be especially burdensome for students living far from urban centers. Some may have to arrive at school unusually early or remain after their other lessons have ended, effectively forcing families to choose between practical realities and the religious education they want for their children.

Bishop Wojciech Osial, president of the Polish Bishops’ Conference’s Commission for Catholic Education, has described the ministry’s decisions as harmful and rejected what he calls the marginalization of religious instruction.

The bishops had proposed an alternative model in which students would choose between religion and ethics, ensuring that every student participated in one of the two subjects. Bishop Osial argues that such an approach could serve both believers and non-believers, particularly at a time when many educators are concerned about a wider crisis of values among young people.

Former commission president Bishop Marek Mendyk has been even more forceful, accusing authorities of attempting to remove religion from schools and turn public education into an exclusively secular sphere.

The distinction is significant. Poland’s bishops argue that public schools belong to all citizens and should not be confused with institutions from which religious convictions must automatically be excluded. For Catholic families, the debate therefore touches directly on parental rights and religious freedom.

The controversies over surrogacy and religious education involve very different policies, but they reveal a common concern within the Polish Church: the fear that fundamental questions about human dignity and the role of families are increasingly being treated as matters to be settled without sufficient regard for moral conviction.

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