POLAND

Roman Catholic religious orders in Poland have taken to advertising to try and stem a decline in vocations. “The church has been advertising itself for two thousand years,” Dariusz Kowalczyk, the head of the Jesuit order in Poland, was quoted as saying by the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper. “Today, the adverts are more sophisticated and this isn't surprising; there's the Internet and color printing, and it would be a sin not to use them,” he explained. The newspaper showed a Warsaw church billboard depicting two monks on a country lane above the words “Join us!” Another advertisement, featuring a handsome, unshaven man in a clerical collar, proclaimed “Hard guy? No, a Jesuit.” (Ecumenical News International)