In spite of a slight fall of the number of participants in Sunday Mass, the number of Catholics who take the sacrament of penance remains high in Poland. During the last Sunday in October, the number of dominicantes (i.e. those who participate in Sunday Mass) and that of comunicantes (those who take the sacrament of the Eucharist) was counted in all the 10,500 parishes of Poland. In some dioceses of the country over 20% of the faithful regularly attend Sunday Mass and receive Communion. According to the Rev. Witold Zdaniewicz, director of the Institute of Statistics of the Polish Catholic Church, “the fact that the number of comunicantes in Poland is lower than the average for Western Europe is the consequence of the fact that it is the practice in Poland to take communion only after confession, whereas in other European countries there is a grave crisis of confessions”. According to the statistics, over 80% of Polish Catholics confess at least once per year, while 30% do so far more often.
