“Dies Irae?” The Role of Religiosity in Dealing with Psychological Problems Caused by The COVID-19 Pandemic—Studies on a Polish Sample

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is an excellent essay, which will make a very noteworthy contribution to the field. It was excellently annotated and informed by a diverse range of other cognate studies. The only amendement required is on page 13 where reference 7 needs to move from line 437 to line 470

Author Response

We would like to warmly thank you for positive evaluation of our article.  We appreciate that you read it so carefully and insightfully, which greatly enhanced our original work. Reference 7 has been repositioned. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Fascinating article, congratulations to the Authors.
I have a few questions and comments.
1) The title should definitely not be written in capital letters. In Netiquette, capital letters = shouting.
2) In the Limitations section, the numbering starts with 5 - why?
3) The article is well documented and contains a lot of references to publications in its field. However, I recommend the Authors' attention to the text https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/5/2522/htm#B2-ijerph-18-02522 - because it directly concerns Poland. Perhaps the Authors will find there some valuable references.
4 The above comments were about formal issues and minor details. In conclusion, I would like to discuss more serious concerns. The article is written from the perspective of psychology. Unfortunately, at times it leads to a worrying reductionist approach to religion. It can be seen, for example, in lines 423-424, where the authors write: "...because religious life may not only bring benefits but may also be a source of stress and an inner struggle". From a purely psychological point of view, the Authors are right. However (even in psychology), the highest goal of man is not to avoid stress. Sometimes a crisis is salutary for the development of a person as a person (as the theory of positive disintegration by Dabrowski tells us; the authors should know it well). In my opinion, ending the Discussion and Conclusion at this point is like cutting off a speech in mid-sentence. When interpreting the results, one should at least mention the theological perspective (e.g. spiritual fight) according to St. Ignatius Loyola: affliction and consolation. The spiritual life is not a continuous ascent, rather a sinusoid. It is full of ups and downs. I am afraid that the authors' approach is somewhat reductionist and reduces religion, religious practices, religious experiences to the fact of good or bad mood. 
Please understand me well: I am not questioning the approach's correctness from a psychological point of view. I would like the authors to note more clearly that there are scientific disciplines other than psychology and that the phenomena they study can also be a field of interpretation for other sciences. Moreover, I think that a reference even to spirituality theology could give a broader interpretative perspective.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your positive evaluation of our article. We believe that the presented scope of problems has a great future, considering the necessity for seeking sources of support in the face of deepening burdens on large groups of people. 

1.The title has been corrected in accordance with the reviewer’s suggestion. We apologize for the error caused by our inattention.

2. The numbering has been corrected, it should obviously start with No. 1. This is an unintentional error, possibly an unplanned action by the editing system. 

3.