Cenzura i religia. Wpływ Głównego Urzędu Kontroli Prasy Publikacji I Widowisk na kształt podręczników do religii i innych tekstów religijnych w latach 1948-1955

In my article I would like to describe the influence of the Main Office of Control of Press, Publications and Shows (MOoCoPPaS) on censored religious texts. The article mainly concerns manuals for religious instruction, but also other interesting religious texts, such as: prayer-books, catechisms, the New Testament and a theological scientific text – Karol Wojtyla’s tenure dissertation. During my search query at the Central Archives of Modern Records in Warsaw (Archiwum Akt Nowych w Warszawie) I focused on acts of the MOoCoPPaS which concerned manuals for religious instruction. I analyzed data included in over 20 files, which gives a total number of about 6,850 pages of documents. The discussed archival material mainly consists of censors’ reviews of the previously mentioned texts. The points discussed in these involve comments on social and political issues; prayers for peace and for the president; elimination of texts connected with the oppression of Catholicism and Catholics; obliteration of terms of soldiers or knights of Christ; deletion of terms of the Polish state and Poles; attacks on laic knowledge; intolerance of atheism; pre-war manuals and Jews. Both parties of the permanent conflict between the Church and the State used some “strategies”. In order to avoid censorship, religious instruction was usually taught without a manual. The authorities, in turn, suspended printing of inconvenient items by keeping them at the Office. However when such text was to be published censors tried to at least diminish its importance.