The article is a philosophical-theological reflection on the relationship between freedom and truth. The author, using familiar texts as a background, especially documents of contemporary Popes, presents original and personal thoughts on the topic. The author attempts to assert that an honest attitude towards truth is a condition of freedom.

A detailed article of Wolfgang Klausnitzer aims at the answer to the following question:„Does Christianity surpass other religions?”  In the first part of the paper theAuthor explains the understanding of the term religion throughout the ages and presents in a very detailedway a development and an attitude of thinkers towards religion in respective periods. In the second part he meditates upon the attitude of Christianity towards other religions. Does Christianity „dominates” other religions since it is not a religion but a revelation of God? Trying to answer this question the Author quotes different points of view on this matter and eventually refers to the note of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith from January 24, 2001. Its authors analysed in details the following five issues: On the sole and universal salvific mediation of Jesus Christ, On the unicity and completeness of revelation of Jesus Christ, On the universal salvific action of the Holy Spirit, On the orientation of all human beings to the Church, On the value and salvific function of the religious traditions.
Wolfgang Klausnitzer makes it very clear that the Catholic Church does not reject other religions, but examines with all gravity their writings and commandments.

The author’s reflection focuses on two major assumptions. First of all religious rituals and liturgies, which is a Christian culture of a feast and celebration, include a recollective, performative and identity-creating power. Second of all religious rituals have an impact on culture and therefore on a cultural identity. If today in Europe a new religious awakening is expected, then similarly to the past a special role in this process belongs to rituals. Christian culture of celebrating affects a universal culture by celebrating feasts as a „religious counterpoint”, which is opening our everyday life to a „different” and Divine time and a transcendent dimension, by emphasizing a human dignity of every person in the sacrament of baptism regardless sex or a social background and by a practice of humanism shown to the dying and the deceased. The author emphasizes that if at the beginning of the twenty first century religion is described as a cultural source of Europe, it is a Christian culture of celebrating that may become its communicator.

In the present article the role of the „Church of the Home” in the exhortation Familiaris consortio is analysed in the aspect of Christian initiation defined in the post-Council Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (Ordo initiationis christianae adultorum). The Christian initiation has a special character in the life of family, because Christian parents in the sacrament of Matrimony are consecrated to educate their children in a really Christian spirit. The Church that is a community united in the Holy Spirit – koinonia – is realized in the dimension defined by the terms martyria, leiturgia, diakonia and similar it is in the Church of Home.
In the history of the Church we find the two basic forms of introducing new members into the Christian community. The first one is the catechumenate of adults who personally, consciously accepted the Gospel. This is a process aiming at accustoming them to Christian life stage by stage (cf. OICA 4), and leading to receiving the sacraments of initiation along with the mystagogy accompanying them. The other form is accustoming children who were baptized in infancy to Christian life; this is done parallel to their biological, social, psychological and spiritual development. This process also happens gradually as a natural element of educating children in a Christian family, and it is called „family catechumenate”. Here is the place of preparation children for receiving the sacraments of the Eucharist and the Confirmation.

Pope Benedict XVI in the Encyclical Caritas in veritate says that „there are certain religious cultures in the world today that do not oblige men and women to live in communion but rather cut them off from one other in a search for individual well-being” (No. 55). This well-being leads people to rejection of God and a religious life. „Without God – in the pope’s opinion – man neither knows which way to go, nor even understands who he is” (No. 78). For human creation, having a spiritual nature, accomplishes itself in the fullest way most of all in relations with God and interpersonal relations. This relates in a special way – as we read in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen gentium – to a family community in which every child through the sacrament of baptism enters the living relation with God and the Church. It is at home where parents are to be witnesses of the faith and love of Christ to one another and to their children (see No. 35).
A family has got special capacities to fulfil its didactic functions. They result from the fact of responsibility of a family for a young person. The Declaration on Christian Education Gravissimum educationis underlines the fact that „since parents have given children their life, they are bound by the most serious obligation to educate their offspring and therefore must be recognised as the primary and principal educators” (No. 3).
Therefore from the earliest years Christian parents should teach their children respect and reverence to God and neighbours. As the first educators and catechists of their children they should be aware of their religious knowledge, educational skills, responsibility for their child and its religious upbringing. They should also understand the need of creating a Christian climate in their families. Pope Benedict XVI calls Christian parents to help their children to believe, to accompany them on a road to Jesus and with Jesus, becauselife in a family – according to the pope – becomes more open and joyful if God is present in it and if one experiences His closeness, especially in a prayer.

For a pastoral theology a document of the Second Vatican Council Gaudium et spes is of a special importance. The constitution says that the Church is obliged to read the signs of time and interpret them in the light of the Gospel (see: No. 4). A painful sign of time today is the problem of unemployment which is at stake on most countries of the world. In Poland it became clearly visible after 1989 when political changes were introduced.
The article is divided into two parts. The first includes an analyses of the phenomenon of unemployment in Poland after 1989. A vital thesis presented in the paper is that a transition from a controlled economy of the communist times to a free-market economy, necessary in a country which regained freedom and democracy, triggered a „revolution” on the labour market and its negative effect was an abrupt increase in unemployment – up to 20% as the national average and over 40% in some regions of Poland. Level, impact and negative effects of unemployment depend on many factors, especially on age, sex, place of residence, level of education. Polish unemployment concerns most of all the young (18–34 years) and causes a mass economic emigration.
The second part of the article includes a reflection on the effect of unemployment on spousal and family life on the basis of statistical data and sociological research. Unemployment has many negative effects not only on an unemployed person but also in relation to members of his family, especially children. It concerns physical and mental health, spousal bond, family relations. The problem makes upbringing and educating children more difficult. Negative effects of unemployment require most of all a reaction from the side of the state: fighting the said effects, creation of new job posts, social help in difficult cases. Also the Church cannot remain passive in the face of the problem. Not only does the Church present its social doctrine, but most of all offers various forms of help to the unemployed and their families.

The author presents an overview on the issue of care for the terminally ill from the triple perspective: a) epidemiological and statistical perspective, b) the perspective of hospital operators and insurance companies, c) the social-political and medical-ethical perspective. All the perspectives are analysed in details. The author of the paper emphasises that a terminally ill person who receives a palliative care should not be viewed only as a separated victim of the illness. Of course from the medical point of view in such cases life quality is systematically reduced, however a palliative patient does not only have fears and worries, but also hope which embraces his family and the nearest and dearest. The end of life can contribute to realisation of its finitude and looking at death as a sort of fulfilment of life. Experience of life coming to its end by persons involved in palliative care may be not only something passive, but an active enrichment of their own existence.

Crises of education as the result of the „post-socialist disease” has been noticed in Poland, just after the collapse of the socialist system. Observing many existing treats and challenges towards the education, the Catholic Church in Poland have supported the process of religious and moral formation, building it on the basis of the personalistic anthropology. In this article, authors undertake the issue of moral education, which includes: basic norms of Christian life, the formation of conscious, education towards freedom and self-education; as well as religious education, which presents sanctity as the main goal of Christian formation. Responsible undertaking of education of children presuppose close co-operation of parents, teachers and educators.

The aim of this paper is to illustrate the prospects, limitations and challenges connected with providing Polish youth with regional studies as part of religious education. The conducted research focuses on: supporting the young in discovering the regional community and their regional cultural heritage, and preparing them for Christian involvement in socio-cultural activities in the region. The following issues have been presented: the nature of regional education in Polish schools, the role and place of regional education in teaching religious education, the practice of providing regional studies in religion lessons in secondary schools. All the abovementioned issues have been discussed in light of the Polish pedagogical and catechetical literature and only with reference to the young. They have shown the complexity and variety of aspects of regional education in teaching religion to the young. In the closing section, some conclusions and catechetic postulates have been presented.

Maturing in faith means permanent and lifelong changes and transformations. Today, an adult believer can only survive if he/she personally discovers the reason of believe and the transformation of faith. The article covers typical features of early, middle and late periods of adulthood in terms of both psychological and spiritual development in individual decades. Adult catechesis gives room both to the proclamation of faith as well as to act in the faith what an adult lives, experiences, thinks and decides in different life stages – as a person who works on him/herselves, and as a Christian.

The distinctions between catechesis and religious education are recognised in the official Church documents on education, but still are causing problems in Catholic education theory and practice. The author of this article offers some reflections on the research into how far the distinction between catechesis and religious education is has been recognised by the Catholic education theorists with particular reference to The National Project of Catechesis and Religious Education. The immense work of the Project has been to supply current needs of RE teachers, pupils of Catholic schools, parents, catechists. Yet, the present situation requires an ecclesial community which is ready to take the risk of „creating the living language” as a task of the religious education process.

It is true that in free Poland Sunday became gelatinised. More and more Poles spend this holy day in new „temples of consumption” which are supermarkets. Hundreds of thousands of people are forced to work. It is sad that the apostolic letter of the pope, Dies Domini, in which John Paul II appealed for respecting Sunday did not trigger any legal repercussions in Poland. In view of desacralised time and a lack of a deeper understanding of the meaning of Sunday as the day of celebration, one can see a necessity of a permanent upbringing to celebrating Sunday.
The Eucharist is, in a sense, the aim of a religious life because from the Christian perspective the purpose of life is getting involved in God’s redemptive plans. Their pivotal point is Jesus Christ and His Passover mystery which is constantly being personalised in the Church. It is done especially in a Eucharistic gathering thanks to which people get unified with Christ in the word and the sacrament and with one another. In this way it is the Eucharist where the community with God and among people becomes real and gets deepened. This type of a communion is the purpose of the whole history of salvation. Of course in the eschatological perspective it is also the source towards the purpose since this is the sign pointing at the ultimate community which will get realised at the end ofthe history of salvation. Being the source,  however, it already includes its own purpose to which it is supposed to lead.
In view of the above it seems that both in teaching and upbringing the link between Sunday and what can be called „the theology of the eighth day” is insufficiently emphasised. For Sunday, as John Paul II emphasises in Dies Domini is not only the first day, it is also „the eighth day”, set within the sevenfold succession of days in a unique and transcendent position which evokes not only the beginning of time, but also its end in „the age to come”. [...] Sunday symbolizes that truly singular day which will follow the present time, the day without end which will know neither evening nor morning, the imperishable age which will never grow old; Sunday is the ceaseless foretelling of life without end which renews the hope of Christians and encourages them on their way (No. 26).
On the other hand eschatological dimension of the Eucharist, emphasised by the theology of the eighth day, expresses the very nature of a Christian existence on the earth. It is a privileged moment in which the Church experiences itself as „the pilgrim”. The Mass stimulates Christians to live in an eschatological way, as pilgrims, with their eyes and hearts turned upwards. Therefore the Sunday Eucharist should be a real celebration. Theology of the eighth day may be reflected concretely in the pastoral practice of a parish community. For the world does not need a parish in which you can find all sorts of convenient facilities, actions and entertainment which are produced and distributed by the world, but the place of a pilgrimage and joy. The place where one can experience the presence of the Holy Spirit and where someone coming for the first time is forced to notice something else and shout like those who were entering the first Christian communities Truly God is among you! (1 Co 14:25).

There are different ways and perspectives with which one can approach the liturgical book in order to grasp the full potentials and values contained therein. The author examines the Ordo Paenitentiae especially considering it as a „handbook” of spirituality for the Christian community. The goal is one of truly living the forgiveness and reconciliation. For this a set of pedagogical, theological, liturgical and pastoral attentions are to be activated before the celebration, but also during and after, so that the whole Christian life is sustained by a constant attitude of penance, which finds its synthesis really in its celebration.

Therapy is meant to strengthen or extend one’s health or well-being. Liturgical music wishes to maintain and support this well-being between people and an inner harmony with God as a substantial condition of a physical and psychological health.
It is a common knowledge that a human voice belongs to the world of sounds. A person responsible for a musical side of a liturgical celebration in his community must remember which possibilities of a positive combination are allowed in a musical therapy and which can be considered as appropriate for a contact with God. He must also remember that there are many different listeners who respond to what we understand as a liturgical music. While keeping the artistic principles a real „therapist” must maintain and accept the existing variety of options. 

The hymn Adoro te devote – an amazing testimony of Eucharistic piety from the Middle Ages – is different from other hymns such as Lauda Sion or Pange lingua which describe the Eucharist in a poetic way since it turns in a prayer directly to Christ present in the sign of bread. The author of the article points first of all at certain aspects of Eucharistic mentality of the Middle Ages which seem to be forgotten and which are extremely important also for modern-day poeple. The key to a theological analysis of the hymn is its structure. First of all faith is shown as a mean of an access to a hidden truth (latens veritas) followed by the consequence of this faith – life in Christ and with Christ. Finally the hymn introduces a praying person into an eschatological perspective – a desire to see the Risen Lord directly. The author analyssis the text in relation to other works of St. Thomas Aquinas and shows that nowadays the hymn Adoro te devote may be a precious assistance in getting closer to the mystery of the Eucharist. 

In the teachings of the Church is depicted the relationship of Mary with the life and ministry of priests. The teaching cited above raises questions: why is it so important to every priest to hold love for the Blessed Virgin Mary, and why should the resulting ministry of the sacrament of Holy Orders be her imitation? How should her imitation be realized?
A priest, who loves Mary and knows her life, learns the secret of fulfilling vocation. Anyone in love with the priest’s lifestyle seeks Mary to become an active part of his life. The priest, with his eyes fixed on Mary’s relationship to God, sees her love and obedience. This exact description of faith found perfect realization in Mary that was clear in the announcement. She, by the full submission of intellect and will to God, who reveals his will, bears the whole „novelty” of the faith. Testimony of truth and love will be given by Mary to strengthen courageous priests in pursuit of perfect chastity for life. Mary is an inexhaustible source of confidence, because she is their mother.
In the sacrament of ordination priests were commissioned a triple mission: prophetic, priestly and royal. In performing these tasks, each of them wants to help the Holy Mary – Mother’s Priest. Its support includes, inter alia, in that it showed in his life, which determines the correct completion of this triple mission. Imitating her attitude they will be able to know what the perfect fulfillment of the benefits of the sacrament of Holy Orders obliges. The task of effectively proclaiming the Good News by the priest depends on whether it was first adopted and considered in his own heart. Reflection in the heart of the word of God and the awareness that all life belongs to God helped Mary to convert every moment of this life into prayer and sacrifice. Events described in the Bible (cf. Jn 2:1-11) include intercessory prayer study. The Mother of Christ teaches them to put themselves in a situation of another person, to help identify their needs and understand their viewpoints.

The extract of Malachi 3:1 about preparing the way for the Lord is put into the pericope on John the Baptist being a predecessor of the Saviour (Matthew 11:7-15, Mark 1:1-8, Luke 7:24-30). This prophecy is fulfilled with the person of John the Baptist as he is somebody more important than just God’s herald. With the prophecy of Elijah’s return (Malachi 4:5) he is the one who directly announces the coming of the Lord. Luke is the only writer of the three synoptic gospels that refers to the words of Malachi 4:5-6 and he puts them in his pericope on the announcement of John’s birth (Luke 1:5-25). Luke’s gospel underlines the contrast between John the Baptist and Jesus emphasizing Jesus’ transcendency. The Gospel reinterpretation identifies the coming of the Messiah with the coming of God which makes them equal.
Matthew notes that Jesus speaks of John the Baptist and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come (Matthew 11:14). John is the messenger of the kind usually angels are and none of the other prophets had such an honour. His duty is to preach and prepare the people for the Messiah. Jesus praises John while John is imprisoned and that makes him the first human being to die for Christ.

Le rôle important dans le développement de la vie religieuse joue les autorités – les modèles de personnalités. Il résulte des recherches empiriques que les jeunes s’éloignent de la pression et d’une seule autorité vers une façon de traiter leur vie avec plus d’autonomie. C’est un signe normal du développement personnel des jeunes, venant de la formation de façon à penser à ses propres affaires. Les jeunes opposent les modes de comportement imprimés par leurs parents et ils rejettent les autorités antérieures. Les jeunes ne veulent pas s’adapter à l’ordre existant, mais ils essaient à transformer cet ordre selon leurs propres besoins. Alors, les jeunes ne rejettent pas en général les autorités – dont la preuve est la reconnaissance du rôle de mère comme une autorité („un enfant se développe dans le sein de la mère mais il grandite dans ses bras”) et l’acceptation totale de la personne du Pape, et à la fois les jeunes ne se soumettant pas facilement à l’influence des personnes que veulent leur imposer leur dominance du point de vue de pédagogues (peu d’acceptation pour des enseignants, catéchistes, clercs).
L’attitude critique et méfiante envers les autorités n’exclure pas le désir d’une formation sage, raisonnable, concréte et pratique des jeunes dans les affaires importantes de leur vie, et dans la recherche de leur propre chemin du développement. L’aspiration à l’autonomie dans la détermination et la réalisation de ses propres buts ne s’opposent pas et même elle demandent l’approbation des mêmes droits pour des autres personnes dans la société. Un jeune homme a besoin de moral, rappel, encouragement de la part des adultes, mûrs et sages. Un jeune homme a le droit de demander: „Qu’est-ce cela va me donner?” et un apôtre qui est à la fois une autorité doit lui montrer les buts, les tâches et les moyens qui lui permettent de gagner une meilleure qualité de vie. Un jeune homme qui veut faire le bien, a aussi droit au savoir profond comment on peut y arriver. Les jeunes ont alors le droit de demander: „Pourquoi dois-je agir comme ça?”. Un des moyens importants de chercher une réponse à cette question, est une réflesion critique sur une situation de sa vie et une recherche des solutions à l’aide de la Vérité révélée. La réflesion sur les effets du comportement permet à un jeune homme de prendre dans l’avenir une décision en accord avec la vérité confessée et à la fois avantageuse51. Les jeunes doivent avoir aussi une possibilité de partager leurs problèmes avec les prêtres, cela ne sera possible qu’au moment où les adultes de l’environnement direct deviennent pour les jeunes dignes de confiance, en ayant l’autorité des gens sages, bons, expérimentés et compréhensifs.