The paper adresses the question of how sex/gender is understood within the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church and to what extend it recognizes the category of gender. The objects of the analysis are the teaching of the Roman Curia as well as the documents of the local Church in Poland and statements of Polish bishops from 2013 - 2014. The results of qualitative research conducted among diocesan priests of the Archdiocese of Krakow in 2007 are treated as complementary data. The Church uses the notion of sex that is naturalistic, essentialist, binary and based on the complementarity of sexes. Although the Church does not reduce the notion of sex to the biological aspects, nevertheless the interpretation of gender as social construction is limited. The category of gender has been frequently criticized as ideological by the local Church in Poland and by the Roman Curia. The ahistorical category of sex, present in the discourse of the Roman Catholic Church and in the perceptions of its representatives - priests, petrifies the present gender contract.

The Catholic University of Lublin was the first polish university to be reactivated after the establishment of the communist Polish Committee of National Liberation. The communists treated functioning of the Catholic University of Lublin as a way and symbol to legitimize their power. However, after 1948th, the Catholic University of Lublin, as a university educating catholic intelligentsia, became the target of various repressions. The authorities tried to reduce the only Catholic university operating in the area from the Elbe to Vladivostok, to the ranks of theological seminaries. As a result of administrative sanctions (closing courses) and fiscal sanctions, the Catholic University of Lublin was close to liquidation in the late 1960’s. It was saved by the workers’ revolt in Pomerania in December 1970 and the change of state authorities. Until the end of the Polish People’s Republic (1989), KUL was the subject of intensive operational activities by the communist secret services.

While the issue of “patriot” priests – Roman Catholic clergy openly collaborating with the state authorities in the years 1949/50–1956/57 – is present in historiography, the activities of “progressive” clergy after the so-called October thaw have been recognized in the academic discourse to a much lesser extent. The aim of this article is to supplement the previous, largely incomplete knowledge about the “Caritas” Priests’ Circles at the “Caritas” Association of Catholics. The issue, although limited to the Gdańsk voivodeship, is a pretext for a broader reflection on the religious policy of the communist authorities after 1956. What were the circumstances surrounding the idea of establishing the “Caritas” Priests’ Circles? To what extent were the KKCs an eff ective tool for the authorities in confrontation with the Roman Catholic Church? What methods did the KKCs use to achieve their organizational goals? What were the relations of the KKC with other organizations associating “progressive” Catholics – the PAX Association or the Christian Social Association? And fi nally – how did the hierarchical Church respond to the activities of the KKC? The search for answers to the research questions posed in this way is the subject of the analysis.