73

n the space of two decades, Poland has gone from a country where it was nearly impossible to criticize the Church and its place in public space to one characterized by socially formulated demands that this space be secularized, as witnessed by the many demonstrations against the crucifix erected in front of the presidential palace in Warsaw (supposedly in memorial to President Lech Kaczy?ski, who died in the Smolensk air disaster) as well as Dominican Father Ludwik Wi?niewski’s letter to the Papal nuncio in Poland challenging the Polish Church. Examining this development leads one to attend to the political uses of the 'Polish = Catholic' stereotype after 1989. Three issues, in particular, need to be considered : the permanence of the role accorded to religion in Poland independently of the break with the past represented by 1989; the significance of the use of religious references in the evolution of the Polish scene since the establishment of democracy; and the role of religion as a resource for simultaneously managing identity and movement (that is, the reorganization of identity occasioned by the profound changes with which Polish society, like all others, finds itself confronted)