On November 24, 2017, the Polish lower house passed a bill to gradually phase out most Sunday shopping by 2020. Approved by the Polish Senate and signed by the country’s president, the bill took effect on Sunday, March 11, 2018, limiting Sunday shopping to the first and last Sundays of the month during the remainder of 2018. Non-compliance can lead to hefty fines, even prison.
While the majority favor keeping the shops open, the controversial legislation is backed by Poland’s Catholic bishops and the influential Solidarity trade union. Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki, who supported the ban during the initial public controversy over the proposal, told Polish Radio, “Free Sundays are what all Catholics, non-Catholics and non-believers need.”[1] While appealing to the universal need for rest in their support of a total ban on Sunday shopping, the bishops cannot mask the religious dimensions of privileging Sunday in an overwhelmingly Catholic country.
The Christian Broadcasting Network certainly viewed the ban in explicitly religious terms,
In the Old Testament, the Bible teaches that Sunday is a day of rest since God rested on the seventh day after creating the world. Sunday, the first day of the week, became the Catholic “seventh day” and a day of resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead on Sunday.[2]
Building time for families, strengthening social relationships and promoting equality are all important goals. But to use these goals as a pretext for restoring a special status to Sunday threatens religious freedom. As I revealed in It’s Sunday in America, Christian heritage is rising as an issue in Europe and America and Sunday is central to this rise.
The Polish legislation is a reminder that the arguments for Christian heritage may include social benefits. Yet in an era of declining commitment to constitutional democracy any move to increase the influence of religion on the state must be viewed as an assault on religious freedom.
[1] BBC, News From Elsewhere, “Polish bishops for total ban on Sunday shopping,” 23 August 2017, http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-41025700
[2] CBN News, “Returning to the Bible, Poland Reclaims Sunday as a Day of Rest,” 28 November 2017, www1.cbn.com/…/poland-reclaims-day-of-rest-by-slowly-phasing-out-sunday-shoppi…
