Speaker to discuss Polish Catholicism

Thursday the Polish Studies Center will sponsor a lecture, "The Search for Catholic Modernity: Anti-Semitism and the Boundaries of Catholic Discourse in Poland" at 7 p.m. in Woodburn Hall Room 111.\nBrian Porter, associate professor of history at the University of Michigan, will deliver the lecture.\n"My goal for the evening will be to demonstrate the need to carefully historicize Catholic anti-semitism in Poland -- to recognize that both Catholicism and anti-semitism change over time, and that there is no stable or clear-cut relationship between the two," he said.\nPorter said that relationship has ranged from Catholic support of anti-semitic hostility to Catholic insistence on Jewish-Polish coexistence.\n"Once we acknowledge this fact, we can move on to historical explanations for why, in certain times and under certain circumstances, anti-semitic rhetoric has penetrated Catholic circles, and why at other times it has not," Porter said.\nHeather Kates, administrative secretary at the Polish Studies Center, said this is the center's first lecture of the year.\n"Each year we try to provide several lectures about and for the Polish community," Kates said. "Mr. Porter's talk will be an excellent forum for Polish education."\nPorter said many people view Poland as an exclusively Catholic nation and think Polish nationalism and the Church have always been inextricably linked. But Porter argues that Catholic/Polish patriotism has historically been marked by frequent transformations.\nThursday's lecture will highlight Porter's most recent investigation into that subject. It follows the publication of Porter's first book, "When Nationalism Began to Hate: Imagining Modern Politics in 19th Century Poland"