Archbishop of Gniezno in the context of Roman Catholicism in Poland

Jakub Świnka (died 4 March 1314) was a Polish Catholic priest, the Archbishop of Gniezno and a notable politician and statesman, supporter of the idea of unification of all Polish lands under the rule of Władysław I the Elbow-high ("the Short"). His coat of arms was Świnka.

Polish members of the Catholic Church, like elsewhere in the world, are under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome. The Latin Church includes 41 dioceses. There are three eparchies of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the country, with members of the Armenian Catholic Church under the Ordinariate for Eastern Catholics in Poland. The ordinaries of these jurisdictions comprise the Episcopal Conference of Poland. Combined, these comprise about 10,000 parishes and religious orders. There are 40.55 million registered Catholics (the data includes the number of infants baptized) in Poland. The primate of the Church is Wojciech Polak, Archbishop of Gniezno.

In the early 2000s, 99% of all children born in Poland were baptized Catholic. In 2015, the church recorded that 97.7% of Poland's population was Catholic. Other statistics suggested this proportion of adherents to Catholicism could be as low as 85%. The rate of decline has been described as "devastating" the former social prestige and political influence that the Catholic Church in Poland once enjoyed. On the other hand, a 2023 survey of 36 countries with large Catholic populations using data from the World Values Survey revealed that 52% of Polish Catholics claimed to attend Mass weekly, the seventh highest of the nations surveyed and the highest among European countries. Most Poles adhere to Latin Catholicism. About 71.3% of the population identified themselves as such in the 2021 census, down from 88% in 2011.

Ignacy Błażej Franciszek Krasicki (3 February 1735 – 14 March 1801), from 1766 Prince-Bishop of Warmia and from 1795 Archbishop of Gniezno (thus, Primate of Poland), was Poland's leading Enlightenment poet ("the Prince of Poets"), a critic of the clergy, Poland's La Fontaine, author of the first Polish novel, playwright, journalist, encyclopedist, and translator from French and Greek.

His most notable literary works were his Fables and Parables (1779), Satires (1779), and poetic letters and religious lyrics, in which the artistry of his poetic language reached its summit.