In this ethnographic study, I explore the ways, in which the engagement of Polish Catholics with Swedish society generates both adaptation and resistance. The thesis begins with an overview of the history of the Swedish Catholic Church and notes how Poles became one of the most numerous immigrant groups in Sweden during past decades. I then make use of fifteen in-depth interviews along with more than twenty sessions of observation in a Polish milieu in the Mälaren Valley. Polish Catholics often consider themselves, as one put it, as "weird creatures" in Sweden, not only for being a religious minority, but also due to conflicts between Catholic moral teachings and prevailing modern liberal views in Swedish society. Also, interviewees tend to blame Sweden for weakening the religiosity of their compatriots. Catholicism often presents particular challenges for the adaptation and integration of Poles, especially teenagers, who are, as one out it, seen "like freaks here". Also notable is the controversial stance of parishioners and the clergy on gender questions. While many laity see feminism as a threat, some priests assert that "feminism and Catholicism have so much in common". Among other challenges for the religious life of Poles in Sweden are consumerism, which leads to the formulation "prosperity destroys people" and is seen as a competitor to the church; and the Swedish language, which divides first and second generations. Interviewees also express shared interests with Muslims and solidarity with Orthodox Christians.

For many years Swedish archeologists have stumbled upon domestic cat remains in the Viking age graves. Most of the graves in this paper come from southern Sweden and Mälaren Valley where many finds have been studied. The questions are how much of the cats is left in the grave material, what kind of grave goods were deposited with the dead, if cats are usually buried either with men or women and what the combinations of all the different animal species that cats were buried with can tell us. The theory in this work is concerning human - animal relations between the vikings and their cats with the weight on antropocentrism. The point of the mentioned theory in this paper is to provide answers to what cats could mean in the viking burial ritual context. 17 grave fields have been analysed for this work with the biggest part of them located in the Mälaren Valley regions (14 grave fields), and 3 in southern Sweden. The result of this study implies that cats in the analysed Mälaren Valley and southern Sweden graves were buried with wealthy people like aristocrats and merchants. They were also seen as exotic pets during their lifetime. The cats were usually buried with other animals like dogs, horses and chickens which all propably had a status of sacral animals during viking age. Cats' remains condition is also brought up as the felines were found either as partial or full/ almost complete skelettons. Analysis results also imply that cats were buried as often with men as with women and there are also rare cases of child burials with these animals.