This is a very interesting question which deserves an answer of some kind. However, there are some issues with it. For example, is Poland really the most homophobic country in the EU? Nevertheless, it is worth looking at in more detail.

A historian of the Catholic church, or even theology in general, may focus on the role of the church in answering this question – which would, undoubtedly, be very interesting and of great value. Due to my own personal background I prefer to focus on the role of communism. This is not illogical as it accounts for the majority of the time between 1932 and the present. However, it is far from the only possible approach.

There is, admittedly, a tendency to focus on religion when discussing this issue in the literature (e.g. Antagonism in the Making: Religion and Homosexuality in Post-Communist Poland by Dorota Hall). However, it should be noted that even the mentioned text is actually a chapter in a broader book discussing the regional situation (Religious and Sexual Nationalisms in Central and Eastern Europe).

If it is a regional issue, it makes Poland appear a little less unique than the question might suggest. For example, opinions on gay marriage suggest that Poland is broadly in line with, in some cases even more progressive than, neighbouring countries. Moreover, there are six EU countries (Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Poland and Romania) where rainbow families are not formally recognised. What appears to link these countries is not particularly region, given that Latvia and Lithuania are northern, Slovakia and Poland central, and Bulgaria and Romania Balkan, but a history of communism.

In many communist countries the penal code of the previous regime had penalised homosexuality and this was just retained by the communist authorities. However, it is notable that in Poland the absence of criminality for same-sex acts was retained. Legalised would not be the right word as the experience of Foucault clearly indicates. Moreover, if not directly criminalised it did not prevent certain victimisation, as in Operation Hyacinth.

What makes the matter even murkier is that it does not seem to matter much whether the communist regime never criminalised homosexuality directly, as in Poland; decriminalised it, as in Czechoslovakia 1962 and Bulgaria 1968, or gradually decriminalised it in Hungary; decriminalised it and then recriminalized it, as in the USSR. It also doesn’t seem to make a huge amount of difference how religious a country is, only 7% of Latvians regularly attend a church service, while in Poland the number of weekly attendees 42%. How Catholic a country is also does not seem to be as impactful as one could expect with Hungary and Poland taking similar anti-LGBT stances with vastly different levels of Catholic identification in the country (37% vs. 92%). The result still sees rainbow families are not formally recognised (Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Poland and Romania) or incredible societal barriers to acceptance.

There is no simple answer to such a complicated question, but it appears that the most plausible explanation can be found in the history of communism. That being said, a convincing explanation of public attitudes to homosexuality across varies different communist countries in Europe remains illusive to the best of my knowledge. Someone may yet come forward with a more thorough source which may better explain the situation than I have here, until then I will suggest a few sources which discuss the issues in some detail. The contradictions are discussed in 3.3 of Transnational Homosexuals in Communist Poland: Cross-Border Flows in Gay and Lesbian Magazines by Szulc. Further relevant reading can be found here.

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Sources:

ILGA-Europe, Annual Review of the Human Rights Situation of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex People in Europe and Central Asia 2022

Jonathan Evans, Pope Francis to visit the three Baltic countries – only one of which is majority Catholic

L Englestein, Soviet policy toward male homosexuality: its origins and historical roots

Lukasz Szulc, Transnational Homosexuals in Communist Poland: Cross-Border Flows in Gay and Lesbian Magazines

Lukasz Szulc, Operation Hyacinth and Poland's pink files

Srdjan Sremac and R. Ruard Ganzevoort, Religious and Sexual Nationalisms in Central and Eastern Europe

Statistics Poland, Infographic - Religiousness of Polish inhabitiants

Thomas Sliwowski, The Gay Panopticon: On Remigiusz Ryziński’s “Foucault in Warsaw”