Ideological power in parishes: Rzeszów vs Dublin

Abstract

Notions of power (including traditional and ideological), violence (including symbolic) and cultural hegemony were discussed in the paper. In the empirical part, forms of and mechanisms for the development and performance of ideological power of the Catholic Church were presented in Polish milieus on examples of large towns of Poland and Ireland. The mechanisms for symbolic violence were presented at the construction of a new church in Rzeszów and the failure of the performance of uncontrolled economic power in a Polish Catholic church in Dublin. The ideology of the ‘overwhelming majority’ of Catholics in Poland was confronted with their de facto number according to different criteria, including canonical. On this background, the mechanisms for symbolic violence in parishes in Poland was indicated and confronted with the still valid observations made by Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński ninety years ago.