Post-Catholic Transformations: A Sociological Analysis of Nonreligion in Northern Poland

This article analyses the phenomenon of nonreligiosity in Northern Poland in the context of secularisation, individualisation, and pluralisation in religion. Based on quantitative research conducted in 2024 among adult residents of Western and Gdańsk Pomerania (N = 1500), this study shows that nonreligiosity is not merely a lack of faith but a multidimensional social construct encompassing both religious indifference and active irreligiosity. Factor analysis confirmed a two-dimensional structure—religious indifference and irreligiosity—differing in their degree of reactivity towards religion. In Western Pomerania, both forms are statistically stronger and conceptually broader, taking the shape of secular individualism and demands for a more secular public sphere, whereas in Gdańsk Pomerania, attitudes are more polarised, ranging from institutionalised faith to open contestation of the Church. Drawing on the approaches of Campbell, Zuckerman, Bullivant, Klug, and Lee, this study interprets nonreligiosity as a dynamic field of attitudes, from distance to opposition towards religion. The findings indicate that secularisation in Poland does not lead to the disappearance of religion but to its restructuring and privatisation. Nonreligiosity thus emerges as an alternative source of meaning, morality, and identity in a post-Catholic society, while regional differences reveal a hybrid model of secularisation that combines passivity and distance with active contestation, confirming the continuum between religiosity and nonreligiosity in contemporary worldviews.