The image of the Catholic Church in Poland in selected main weeklies after the death of John Paul II

The article presents the results of content analysis of opinion weekly magazines: „Wprost”, „Polityka”, „Newsweek” and „Tygodnik Powszechny” from Th point of view of Church image created there, as a public institution after the Heath of John Paul II. The analysis covered 218 units of press information published in 20 issues of mentioned weeklies which appeared from April 9 to May 8, 2005. The author analyses the image of Church in mentioned weeklies, paying attention to the way of description and – what is particularly important – to the way of defining Church by the authors of analysed publications. “The passing of John Paul II” evoked wide discussion concerning condition, activity, past and future of the Catholic Church as a public institution in Poland. The behaviour of Church “in days of passing John Paul II” was rather critically judged, the Church was accused of helplessness, lack of organization, lack of readiness to take the initiative, not being a leader of faithful. The authorities of Church were evaluated in a very critical way, however, the message concerning the activity of parishes and attitude of individual priests had a positive undertone. Analysed weeklies distinctly generalized negative opinions while positive messages had its individual heroes and were not attributed in favor of the whole Church.