“fringe minority of people”
The Polish communists used to call Polish Catholics “the minority non-atheists”. Until about 3 million people showed up for an open air Mass with Pope John Paul II.
Say what you will about his nutty daughter, but I have it on good authority that Zbigneiw Brzezinski absolutely cherished the lessons of that day—the people looked around and realized their strength in numbers. Brzezinski in his role as National Security Advisor helped the efforts of Reagan, Thatcher and JP2 to break communism in Poland, relishing being able to converse with JP2's closest aide and JP2 himself in Polish.