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Inspections of seminars by state authorities in Poland in 1960–1971

Tyt. zeszytu: Studia historycznoprawne

In 1960–1971 the government conducted inspections of seminars, both diocesan seminars and those run by religious orders, all over Poland. The success of the authorities’ efforts depended on the seminar in question and the year. As early as in February 1950 the first attempts were made to subordinate some seminars to state control, specifically, the control of the Ministry of Education, on the basis of Articles 96–107 of the Decree 28 October 1947, which dealt with the organisation of schools and higher education institutions. The remaining seminars were to be controlled by the respective Boards of Education, in accordance with the Private Schools Act of 11 March 1932. Invoking these legislative acts, the authorities wanted to exercise the right to grant approval to statutes, curricula, appointment of teaching staff as well as supervise the implementation of the curricula in the seminars. Yet their efforts produced meagre results. This did not change until 1959, when the communist authorities realised that freedom of educating and forming future priests was extremely problematic for them and that the process was completely out of their control. A conviction that in its seminars the Church was educating future priests in an atmosphere that was hostile to the people’s republic and was promoting views hostile to the interests of society prompted the communist authorities to take action seeking to take control of seminars. The seminars were to abide by the provisions of the Act of 19 April 1950 on the Change of the Organisation State Authorities with Regard to Municipal and Public Administration, Private Schools Act of 11 March 1932, and then the Act of 15 July 1961 on the Development of the Education System as well as the Ordinance of the Minister of Education of 26 February 1965 on the Rules and Conditions of Running Non-State Schools and Other Education Institutions. They were also subordinated to the control of the state authorities. After more than a decade of battles between the government and the Polish Episcopate, the question of control over seminars was finally resolved in 1971, when the authorities ceased their inspections of seminars.

Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego

ISSN 0239-6661 ISSN 0524-4544

10.19195/0524-4544.325.12

PAd P 101182 II

Acta Universitatis Wratislaviensis. Prawo, ISSN 0524-4544. Nr 325 (2018), s. 229-246

Czasopisma Naukowe w Sieci (CNS)

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