Parish Press in the Szczecin-Kamień Archdiocese

An Outline of the Problem

Keywords: parish press, Catholic media, Western Pomerania, Catholic Church, pastoral ministry

Abstract

The aim of this article is to trace the birth, development and decline of the parish press in Poland on the example of the Archdiocese of SzczecinKamień. Due to its quantitative and qualitative richness, a thorough study of this segment of the press requires further meticulous research, because from the late 1980s and early 1990s thousands of titles came into being, disappeared and were reborn again with a different title and editorial team. The article traces the historical background of the West Pomerania Province which after the Second World War was incorporated within the boundries the communist Poland. As a result, many Poles (mostly Catholics) from the territories lost to the Soviet Union found themselves on the territory where the Catholic Church hardly functioned. It would be difficult to understand the particular role of the parish press in the Western Pomerania without knowing the broader context of the emergence and spontaneous development of parish newspapers on national level. These issues are looked at in more detail in the section describing the years of activity of the National Parish Press Association. The article features also the issues related to the typology and systematization of “parish press.” Because of the scarcity, and often absence of written sources, the author conducted a series of interviews with the persons engaged in the development of the parish press, which had its heyday in the nineties of the XX century.

Published
2023-06-29
How to Cite
Ufnal, P. (2023). Parish Press in the Szczecin-Kamień Archdiocese: An Outline of the Problem. The Ignatianum Philosophical Yearbook, 29(2), 153-172. https://doi.org/10.35765/rfi.2023.2902.10
Section
Articles