New Shepherds

Krzysztof Pawlina presents in his book a profile of a candidate for the priesthood who enters a seminary in Poland. The study was first conducted by survey method in 2000 and then repeated twenty years later. In the former period, the survey covered seminarians born and partly brought up during the communist rule in Poland, while in the latter, the survey subjects were young people who were brought up in the conditions of a democracy and the free market economy. The research captured the change that had taken place in regard to the social identity, lifestyle and mentality of candidates for the priesthood. The study covered aspects such as the geographical and social sources of priestly vocations, the cultural background of priesthood candidates, their religiosity, their world of values, their motivations, their understanding of the priesthood and the Church. This change in question was explored in the context of social transformations, especially the secularisation processes taking place in the last two decades of Poland.



Krzysztof Pawlina obtained his doctoral degree in theology in 1992 at the Catholic University of Lublin; in 1996 he was awarded the post-doctoral degree (habilitation) based on a dissertation on the New Evangelisation; in 1999 he was appointed as associate professor at the Pontifical Faculty of Theology in Warsaw, and in 2003 he was awarded the title of full professor. From 1997 to 2010 he was Rector of the Higher Metropolitan Seminary in Warsaw. From 2010 to 2020, he was appointed Rector of the Pontifical Faculty of Theology in Warsaw, and since 2020 he has served as Rector of the Catholic Academy in Warsaw. In 2016, he was elected President of the College of Deans of Theological Faculties. Since 2017, he has acted as Secretary of the Scientific Council of the Polish Bishops' Conference. In 2020, he was elected Chairman of the Committee of Theological Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the Warsaw Theological Society.