Permanent Religious Socialization as a Pastoral Problem

Permanent religious socialization constitutes a problem not only for psycho- logy, sociology or social pedagogy but also for pastoral activity of the Church. The problem is connected with a broad socio-cultural context called pluralistic where in result of the secularizing processes the Catholic Church loses many of her old subjects of religious socialization and does not take much care over new subjects in this field. The term „permanent religious socialization” denotes exerting influence on children, the young and the adults in the sphere of teaching religious values, symbols and patterns of behaviour. The family is not sufficient as a subject of religious socialization; it would never be even if it thoroughly fulfilled its tasks. Other subjects of socialization are needed, those which will continue and supplement the socializing activities. The author’s hypothesis is that socializing activities of the family are „effective” during the early period of the child’s life. The family teaches the child the basic cultural patterns and religious behaviour. The former are more permanent than the latter. Outside-family subjects of socialization are necessary to continue the patterns of religious behaviour. Nevertheless, the basic cultural patterns may disappear when the patterns of religious behaviour are not preserved. The detailed problems of the paper contain: the pluralistic context, an analysis of secularizing processes present in the context, presentation of two important problems of permanent socialization in the field of religion, namely, the problem of specific subjects of religious socialization (organizations, religious communities, etc.) and pastoral reflections