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Artykuł przedstawia kluczowe etapy rozwoju socjologii religii, a na tym tle prezentowane jest znaczenie badań naukowych w tym zakresie, prowadzonych na Katolickim Uniwersytecie Lubelskim. Pierwszą fazę rozwoju prezentują klasycy socjologii religii, Emilé Durkheim i Max Weber, których zręby rozumienia religii są wkomponowane w całościowe wizje społeczeństwa. Oni też w swoich teoriach zawarli przesłanki dla rozumienia sekularyzacji, które były rozwijane przez następne pokolenia socjologów religii. Autorka stawia tezę, że teorie sekularyzacji i dyskusje wokół niej były ważnym elementem powstania nowych teorii, w tym ważnej koncepcji religii publicznej José Casanovy.
Na tle światowych trendów w rozwoju socjologii religii zaprezentowane są osiągnięcia socjologów pracujących na Katolickim Uniwersytecie Lubelskim, których dorobek badawczy i publikacyjny zyskał miano lubelskiej szkoły socjologii religii. Wśród nich szczególnie zasłużyli się ks. Franciszek Mirek, ks. Józef Majka, ks. Władysław Piwowarski i ks. Janusz Mariański, których najważniejsze zasługi są w artykule omówione, na tle rozwoju dyscypliny w Polsce.

AbstractAttitudes about religion in Polish society have scarcely changed since 1989, in spite of radical political and economic transformation over the past 20 years, as survey data show. The question is why? In the following article, the author develops five alternative hypotheses to explain this phenomenon. Each of the hypotheses relates to some function of religion that is relevant in contemporary times. Among other things, historical circumstances, the role of Catholicism as a civil religion, security, and hidden privatization form the context in which one may explain the continuing vitality of religion in Poland.

AbstractExisting research proves the connection between religion and social attitudes toward biopolitical topics. The purpose of our analyses was to deepen reflection on these connections. We explored the internal pluralization of religiosity and ideological self-placement and their significance for orientations toward abortion, in vitro fertilization, and homosexuality, subjects of intensive political debate engaging the Catholic Church. Our analysis, based on a nationally representative sample of Catholics in Poland, leads to the conclusion that, despite high indicators of religiosity, the capacity of the Roman Catholic Church to form a consistent cognitive perspective among its followers is limited. Even among Catholics who present fully institutionalized religiosity (~25%), only half agree with the Church's teaching on biopolitical themes. These findings are discussed in the context of the importance of intra-religious pluralism for understanding the ideological role of religion in countries with high levels of belonging to one, dominant form of it.

Abstract
The existing research on and conceptualization of the public presence of religion usually builds on the Habermasian understanding of the public sphere. This has centered the discussion on the public presence of religion around the question of where such a presence is justified. Discourse theories offer an alternative understanding, stating that the public sphere is an area of struggles where diverse discourses compete to establish a definition of social reality as taken for granted and hegemonic. This shift opens the question of how a given definition of social reality becomes taken for granted, pointing to the role of legitimation. Against this background, our article argues that religion's ability to serve as a valuable "resource" for building justifications in discursive struggles for hegemony could serve as indicators of its presence in the public sphere. Along these lines, we analyze religion's legitimizing role in abortion policy-making in Poland.