Catholic parishes want land worth over PLN 149 million from Lower Silesians

The report was published on April 25, 2024, following a change of government at the Lower Silesian Voivodeship Office. Between 2015 and 2023, during the PiS government, 22 decisions were issued in Lower Silesia to transfer land (the highest number was in 2021 for three parishes; their details were concealed). In total, over 115 hectares were transferred to the Church, representing assets currently worth PLN 5.6 million.

The Church wants more land, however. Between 2016 and 2017, three joint applications from 212 parishes were submitted to the voivode. All the parishes are represented by the same priest. The parishes wanted to receive a great deal of land – more than 3,026 hectares in total. This is an area larger than the entire city of Bolesławiec. Based on the average land price provided by Statistics Poland (PLN 49,337 per hectare), this amounts to over PLN 149 million. The matter is still pending because the President of the Agricultural Property Agency of the State Treasury refused to transfer the land, and the Church appealed the decision to the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development.

It should be added that, under the law, after land is transferred into their ownership, priests may dispose of it entirely freely. They may sell, donate or exchange it (in accordance with regulations governing transactions involving agricultural land).

Why can the Church demand land for free?

The parishes' demands are based on Article 70a of the Act on the Relationship between the State and the Catholic Church. This article states that the Catholic Church may receive land from the state free of charge in the Western and Northern Territories. There are limits on the area of land transferred: parishes may receive up to 15 hectares, dioceses and seminaries up to 50 hectares, and religious houses up to 5 hectares, unless they conduct specified activities – in which case they may also receive up to 50 hectares. The transfer of land takes place by decision of the voivode, with the consent of the President of the Agricultural Property Agency of the State Treasury, and is subsequently recorded in the land and mortgage registers.

Inspectors call for changes to the Act on the Relationship between the State and the Catholic Church

Officials write in the report that there is no sufficiently important social need to maintain the regulations on transferring Polish land to the Church. “In practice, newly established ecclesiastical legal entities may continue to apply for the transfer of land into ownership as entities that began operating in the Western and Northern Territories after May 8, 1945, even if they were created as a result of dividing entities that had previously received agricultural land into ownership under Article 70a,” the inspectors write.

According to the officials, it is also difficult to find justified grounds for transferring agricultural land in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship into the ownership of, for example, ecclesiastical legal entities based in, for example, the West Pomeranian or Warmian-Masurian Voivodeships.

Furthermore, the inspectors write, it seems that ecclesiastical legal entities do not in fact necessarily need to own agricultural land. Ownership is not essential to conducting their basic religious activities, and ecclesiastical legal entities should not compete with individual farmers for land from the Agricultural Property Stock of the State Treasury.