PAX Association

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PAX Association (Polish: Stowarzyszenie PAX) was a pro-communist government secular religious organization, created in 1947 in Poland. It worked to undermine grassroot support from the Roman Catholic Church. Created by Bolesław Piasecki, it attempted to compete over public issues with the right wing clergy during the stalinist times (1945-1956). It took over Polish branch of Caritas, supported the trial and imprisonment of many Polish clergy, among them bishop Czesław Kaczmarek and cardinal Stefan Wyszyński. After 1956, together with many other similar government initatitives, it was toned down and took a more compromising position, in some regards even supporting the anti-communist resistance in Poland, although it supported the communist government of the People's Republic of Poland until the fall of communism. Throughout the decades after its creation and death of Stalin, it continued to steadily lose power and influence, although it still exists in modern Poland.

At all times it was financed by the government as fake opposition. There were number of collaborators from within the clergy, who were lured by free state benefits, including lavish state pensions (unavailable to clergy otherwise).