Reakcja na zagrożenie koronawirusem – analiza publikowanych treści w początkowej fazie epidemii na oficjalnej stronie Konferencji Episkopatu Polski

The mediatisation of reality has embraced societies and institutions, including religious institutions and religion. This has increased the importance of religious communication, which is part of a broad and complex process of social communication. Its strong position and importance have grown with the development of communication technologies and the popularity of the mass media, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. The decrease in the number of believers in churches in Poland in March 2020 made the media the dominant platform for religious communication. The processes of the mediatisation of religion and the mediatisation of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland strengthen the position of the media in the transfer of religious content and in creating the image of a church institution. The emergence of COVID-19 in Poland in 2020 triggered a reaction from numerous institutions, including the media. On the official website of the Polish Bishops’ Conference, numerous administrative and pastoral messages appeared, which constituted a specific instruction for the faithful from both the pastoral and institutional perspectives. They were also of interest to the media and the public. The dominance of administrative and pastoral texts published on the website episkopat.pl in the analysed period is in line with the nature and mission of the Church, which cannot be reduced to either a temporal and institutional perspective or a spiritual and salvific perspective alone. The analysis of the content quality allows us to notice a slight shift of emphasis towards the temporal perspective, while in the analysed messages, institutional language, defined by the author as the “language of distance,” prevails.