Religia i moralność w opinii maturzystów

In the paper entitled Religion and Morality According to Secondary School Leavers the author analyzes three questions: the attitude of the secondary school leavers to the moral principles of Catholic religion, religion as an instance justifying morality and preferences among the duties of a Catholic. The basis for these analyses is made up of the findings of sociological research carried out in 1994 among secondary school leavers from six Polish towns: Szprotawy, Tarnów, Puławy, Kraśnik, Dęblin and Gdańsk (in total 1468 respondents). The leavers' answers are analyzed across six independent variables: the town in which young people go to school, their sex, type of school, place of residence, self-declarations of faith and religious practices. Summing up our conclusions from the considerations on the relationship between religion and morality we should state that the moral principles of Catholicism are within the sphere of acceptance of the 1994 secondary school leavers; the acceptance, however, is partial and in principle critical. Only every tenth subject does have no reservations as to Catholic moral principles, or does not claim that this morality be supplement ("Catholic morality is just and sufficient"). Every tenth secondary school leaver holds that Catholic morality is totally strange to them. The socio-demographic characteristics do not play such an important role, only the religious characteristics (self-declarations of faith and religious practices) impart so significant differences among the opinions of the secondary school leavers under study.