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The concept of assent in a democratic Church

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13 February 2011 - By

The Polish National Catholic Church rightly takes pride in the fact that its people, all its people, function as its legislative body. Per the Constitution of the PNCC:

ARTICLE VI — CHURCH AUTHORITY

SECTION 1. The authority of this Church is vested in three branches, namely: legislative, executive and judicial.

…

SECTION 3. In administrative, managerial and social matters, this Church derives its authority from the people who build, constitute, believe in, support and care for it. It is a fundamental principle of this Church that all Parish property, whether the same be real, personal, or mixed, is the property of those united with the Parish who build and support this Church and conform to the Rite, Constitution, Principles, Laws, Rules, Regulations, Customs and Usages of this Church.

SECTION 4. The administration, management and control over all the property of the Parish is vested in the Parish Committee elected by the Parish and confirmed by the Diocesan Bishop, and strictly dependent upon and answerable to the lawful authorities of this Church.

The Church is democratically governed, that is, its people make the decisions and express their will at Holy Synod, both the quadrennial General Synod and at Diocesan Synods.

One of the problems frequently seen in other Churches, with similar democratic forms of governance, is the constancy of faith, morals, Tradition, doctrine, and liturgy (within liturgical Churches) under a democratic decision making processes. Are there limits to democracy, and can democracy trump all things?

In a democratic Church, are you one vote away from deciding Jesus is not true-God and true-man, from denying the Virgin birth, from turning the resurrection into a fuzzy myth narrative of confused and poor disciples who carried along the beautiful message of Jesus because it was oh so special to them?

There are those, even within the PNCC, who take Bishop Hodur’s teaching on the democratic nature of the community of Church as a license to make everything subject to democratic process. This form of thinking places the individual in charge of the Church’s teaching, and frees them from the constraints of ‘all that old stuff we’ve gotten way past.’ They use enlightenment arguments, Bishop Hodur arguments, other Churches are doing it arguments, it suits me better arguments, and its unfair/unjust/un-democratic arguments. They only argument they fail to see is the Catholic argument, the linkage to the universal constant within which we strive to overcome what is personal to reach what is Divine.

InsideCatholic, a strongly apologist website which easily resorts to the “heretic” and “exommunicated” argument does make a solid point in Episcopal/Catholic Conversion Is a Two-Way Street

The developing story of the new Apostolic Constitution for Anglicans continues to unfold in the media, boosted by the Anglican Communion’s instability due to the Episcopal Church and their co-revisionists in the Anglican Church of Canada. Less reported has been the equally well-trafficked path away from Rome and toward the Episcopal Church.

In 2009, Episcopal bishop and gay celebrity Gene Robinson crowed that his New Hampshire diocese was brimming with disaffected Catholics, drawn to the promise of a more inclusive church. While Bishop Robinson’s celebration was premature … he was not misrepresenting the source of some new pew occupants.

“Pope Ratzinger,” Bishop Robinson declared, referring to Benedict XVI by his given name in a late-2005 speech, “may be the best thing to happen to the Episcopal Church . . . . We are seeing so many Roman Catholics join the [Episcopal] church.”

Roman Catholics and Episcopalians have swapped places for years, easily facilitated by related liturgical forms and practices. Unlike other Reformation-era churches, the Church of England, then a geographic arm of the Roman Church, maintained the forms and hierarchies of its parent. The Anglo-Catholic wing of Anglicanism is the closest to its source, in many cases conducting services that are more recognizably Catholic than the post-Vatican II Mass. Some American conservatives see Rome’s embrace of theological orthodoxy — reasserted by Benedict and his predecessor, Pope John Paul II — as a compelling alternative to an increasingly listless Episcopal Church.

Similarly, liberal Catholics tied to their forms of worship enjoy the option to embrace the Episcopal Church’s “Catholicism Lite” without the inconvenient frowning upon birth control, abortion, or whatever the latest sexual lifestyle innovation might be.

The point being that if Church is merely choices, one may find the most comfortable outward portrayal of Church for oneself. One may find that place where a loose set of choices is constantly put up for personal and collective vote as the mood strikes today. It is a stunning lack of constancy and perseverance on the narrow road (Matthew 7:13-14).

As with any linear analysis of possible alternatives, one can find the place of balance. In the PNCC the balance point lies at the junction between democracy and assent. Democracy is a governing principal, and self determination over what one gives to build the Church. No one can take the parish, or the Church itself, away from those who “build, constitute, believe in, support and care for it.” In the same manner, no one can use the power of the vote to take the Catholic out of the Church, similarly taking catholicity away from those very same people.

At the XXIII General Synod, a perfect example of balance was on display. The Church Doctrine Commission presented two papers, “To Live in the Spirit of God,” which addressed Church teaching on current moral and bioethical issues, and “Eschatology in the PNCC: A Clarification.” Both were presented, not for a vote, but for the assent of the faithful.

In accord with the Constitution of the PNCC:

ARTICLE VI — CHURCH AUTHORITY

SECTION 2. In matters of Faith, morals and discipline the authority of this Church lies in the hands of the Prime Bishop, Diocesan Bishops and Clergy united with them. This authority is derived directly from God through Jesus Christ, agreeably with the words of our Savior: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20).

“Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 18:18)

The Church’s Catholic nature of Church precludes votes on doctrine and its Holy Tradition. As PNCC faithful, we are bound to conform our lives to the Church’s teaching, not as a matter of choice but as a matter of becoming.

Of course, we are not all there, conforming our lives and our choices perfectly to the Church’s guidance. It is difficult to lay down ones life (John 15:13). We all struggle in the gulf between our sinfulness and perfection, the gap between what is earthly and Divine within us. As we travel that road in growing closer to God’s desires for us, as we climb the ladder, we are called to become, to strive for that which is promised to the faithful. That promise is best fulfilled under the guiding and protecting hand of sound orthodox doctrine and Tradition — not a fuzzy assumption that we are any more right today in our personal choices than people have been for 2,000 years.

Yes, a Church can have a democratic form of governance and hold its Catholic faith through assent.

Tags: ι ι ι ι Categories: Christian Witness, Perspective, PNCC

Idle hands are the devil’s tools

6 February 2011 - By

From The Southern: Teens rocked by unemployment

Katie Pemberton is one of the lucky ones.

Pemberton, a Benton Consolidated High School senior, had no trouble landing a job the Franklin County election office, a requirement for her participation in the BCHS work program.

“I’ve been working here since the end of August, and I’ve had other jobs before,” she said. “It was really pretty easy to find one.”
Others weren’t so lucky, according to program coordinator Sandy Blackman, a BCHS teacher.

In years past, the school-to-work program had an enrollment of 15 to 20 students who attended school half a day and worked, for pay, at jobs in the community the other half of the day.

“We now have six kids,” Blackman said. “The jobs just aren’t out there.”

While Blackman doesn’t always match students to jobs, she does send out a letter to local businesses describing the program and asking employers to consider hiring her students.

Before the start of this school year, she sent out 250 such letters.

She got only one reply.

“We’ve had businesses that hire a student every year, but not this year,” she said.

The national economy is likely the culprit in the disappearance of teen jobs, she said.

“The kids come to me to ask about job openings and there just aren’t any,” Blackman said. “Some businesses can’t afford taking on another employee right now.”

Not alone

Blackman’s students aren’t alone in their failure to find a job.

According to figures from the U.S. Bureau of Statistics, the national unemployment rate for teens ages 16 to 19 was 25.4 percent in December. While that number dipped slightly from the 26.2 percent unemployed at the start of 2010, it represents a huge increase from December 2006, when only 14.6 percent were unemployed…

And from Bloomberg Businessweek: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

From Cairo to London to Brooklyn, too many young people are jobless and disaffected. Inside the global effort to put the next generation to work

In Tunisia, the young people who helped bring down a dictator are called hittistes—French-Arabic slang for those who lean against the wall. Their counterparts in Egypt, who on Feb. 1 forced President Hosni Mubarak to say he won’t seek reelection, are the shabab atileen, unemployed youths. The hittistes and shabab have brothers and sisters across the globe. In Britain, they are NEETs—”not in education, employment, or training.” In Japan, they are freeters: an amalgam of the English word freelance and the German word Arbeiter, or worker. Spaniards call them mileuristas, meaning they earn no more than 1,000 euros a month. In the U.S., they’re “boomerang” kids who move back home after college because they can’t find work. Even fast-growing China, where labor shortages are more common than surpluses, has its “ant tribe”—recent college graduates who crowd together in cheap flats on the fringes of big cities because they can’t find well-paying work.

In each of these nations, an economy that can’t generate enough jobs to absorb its young people has created a lost generation of the disaffected, unemployed, or underemployed—including growing numbers of recent college graduates for whom the post-crash economy has little to offer. Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution was not the first time these alienated men and women have made themselves heard. Last year, British students outraged by proposed tuition increases—at a moment when a college education is no guarantee of prosperity—attacked the Conservative Party’s headquarters in London and pummeled a limousine carrying Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla Bowles. Scuffles with police have repeatedly broken out at student demonstrations across Continental Europe. And last March in Oakland, Calif., students protesting tuition hikes walked onto Interstate 880, shutting it down for an hour in both directions…

Couple disaffected youth, the hopelessness that the new economy has wrought (no, you never will catch up with your parent’s standard, much less gain any power) and throw in a few friends who learned the fine art of IED making in Afghanistan and Iraq, and — well you know who they’ll be targeting first.

Our challenge, particularly as Christians, is not to pull the wool over their eyes, or gloss over the struggle, but to show them that there actually is something else. We have the place where worldliness and all that comes with it is of little importance, where small community and self-reliance make for a good and positive life, the place where we work together, for each other and for the Everlasting. Should we teach them about iPods or I-we-and-Thee?

As it was in 1897, so it is today in the year 1910, that Bishop Hodur is a supporter of reform in the civil or the social spirit, he is for the nationalization of the land, of churches, schools, factories, mines and the means of production. He has stated this openly and states it publicly today, he does not hide his sympathies for the workers’ movement and he will never hide them, and he considers himself nothing else than a worker in God’s Church.

But the bishop is an opponent of erasing religion from the cultural work of humanity — indeed, Bishop Hodur believes strongly and is convinced that all progress, growth, just and harmonious shaping of human relations must come from a religious foundation, lean on Divine ethics, and then such growth will be permanent and will give humanity happiness. — Straz, 21 Jan. 1910.

Tags: ι ι ι ι ι ι Categories: Christian Witness, Perspective, PNCC, Political

Art for the Solemnity of the Presentation (Candlemas)

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2 February 2011 - By

Going to Candlemas, Teodor Axentowicz

And when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”) and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.”

Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. And inspired by the Spirit he came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said,

“Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,
according to thy word;
for mine eyes have seen thy salvation
which thou hast prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and for glory to thy people Israel.”

And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him

Tags: ι ι ι ι Categories: Art, Poland - Polish - Polonia

Build your Parish in 2011

5 January 2011 - By

From Christian Newswire: Top Eight Things Your Church Can Do to Increase Membership in 2011

Most churches in the United States are facing declining membership, but the message is still as relevant as in the past. So what’s changed? The message is getting lost in all the clutter.

Here are my top 8 tips for increasing your church membership in 2011:

  1. List your church on Google Places. Last month 17 million people googled “church, find a church, church home, Methodist Church, Baptist church, etc.”
  2. Make up or buy some cards that invite people to your church and hand them out to every member. Ask them to go out and perform random acts of kindness and give out the cards. Memory Cross has developed some very unique ones or you can create your own. If each of your members can touch three people a year, think what an impact that would make to your community and your church.
  3. Get a list of people in the neighborhoods around your church and reach out to them at least 3-4 times a year. Postcards are a great tool because they are inexpensive and people have to see them, at least for a second.
  4. Create door hangers or flyers and give them to members to hand out in their neighborhood.
  5. Hold a free community event. It can be anything from a car wash to a concert to handing out bottles of water on a hot summer day. Do not accept any donations. Instead hand out a card with your church information on it.
  6. Start using email marketing and ask for the names and email address of all visitors. This will provide you a second way to connect with them.
  7. Set up a system where you connect visitors with someone in your church as soon as possible. Too many people come one time; and if they don’t feel connected to the church, they may not return. Even a phone call to thank them for visiting is a great way to open up conversation.
  8. Form a group that is committed to praying for people in your community. Meet on a regular basis and encourage them to write down any outreach ideas they come up with.

If you take action on these eight steps, you will find new visitors coming to your church and people’s lives being changed.

Tags: ι ι ι ι ι Categories: Christian Witness, Perspective, PNCC

My parish’s Patronal Feastday

2 January 2011 - By

Today we celebrated the Solemnity of the Holy Name of Jesus (the proper Solemnity of the day according to the Ordo of the Polish National Catholic Church), and the Patronal Feastday of my home parish, Holy Name of Jesus in Schenectady, New York. I wish all my co-workers and fellow faithful many blessings on this special day.

In the words of the old Polish greeting:

Niech będzie pochwalony Jezus Chrystus! Na wieki wieków, amen!
Praised by the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ! Forever and ever, amen!

Tags: ι ι Categories: Christian Witness, PNCC

Meet my new Bishop

2 January 2011 - By

From the Times-Tribune: Central Diocese of Polish National Catholic Church to welcome new bishop in February

The Central Diocese of the Polish National Catholic Church and its mother cathedral, St. Stanislaus in South Scranton, will welcome a new bishop and pastor on Feb. 1.

Bishop John Mack has served for the past four years as the auxiliary bishop of the Buffalo-Pittsburgh Diocese and has been a pastor in Western Pennsylvania for two decades.

The current bishop of the Central Diocese, the Most Rev. Anthony Mikovsky, was elected Prime Bishop of the church in October, leaving a vacancy at the head of the diocese that stretches from Maryland to New York. Bishop Mack was assigned to take his place at the end of the denomination-wide synod in October.

He will take charge of what he notes is the largest parish and the largest diocese in the denomination.

“It’s quite daunting,” he said.

Bishop Mack was born and raised in the Polish National Catholic Church in the greater Detroit area and attended Savonarola Theological Seminary in Scranton.

Although he has never served as a pastor in the Central Diocese, Bishop Mack said the relatively small size of the Polish National Catholic Church and the frequency with which people throughout the denomination meet at events means he knows at least a few families here.

“Our church, in its smallness, it has a family feel to it because you get to meet people from all around the denomination when you go to various national events,” he said. “You keep these friends through all the years.”

Because Scranton was the site of the denomination’s break from the Roman Catholic Church and its founding as a new church, parishioners here tend to have an acute sense of the denomination’s first principles, including its democratic structure, he said.

“Many of those parishioners, their grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, were some of the founding members of the first parish,” he said, “so there’s a heightened awareness there of the overall purpose of our denomination, why it began.”

As he prepares for his new role and its spiritual challenges, Bishop Mack has also had to adapt to the earthly logistics of a 300-mile move after decades in the same region.

Priests in the Polish National Catholic Church can marry and Bishop Mack and his wife have three children, aged 17, 20 and 23. In his other fatherly role, Bishop Mack was faced with how to let his 17-year-old son stay in the Pittsburgh area with his 23-year-old sister while he finishes high school.

“That’s one of the things that was the most difficult, and I’m still feeling that a bit in the pit of my stomach,” he said.

Having to make such hard family choices can help the denomination’s priests connect to parishioners who face similar struggles.

“You have a great deal of empathy for them when you’ve been through some of the sleepless nights, and little ones, middle-aged ones and teenagers,” he said. “You have, what do they call that, battle experience?”

Tags: ι ι ι Categories: Christian Witness, PNCC

St. Francis, Denver, attacked again

24 December 2010 - By

From the Denver Post: Griego: Little church’s St. Francis statue a target for vandals
By Tina Griego

Someone’s got it out for St. Francis. Or just the little church named in his honor. Or the church as a whole. Who knows? Maybe just fiberglass statues depicting humble saints who turn their backs on wealth to live in poverty.

It’s hard to know the mind of a vandal. This doesn’t keep Father John Kalabokes from trying.

Not quite five months ago, someone stole the bolted statue of St. Francis from its concrete base outside the St. Francis of Assisi Polish National Catholic Church. You might remember this story. The little church sits just below Leetsdale Avenue at South Jersey Street, across from a McDonald’s. Father John speculated the thief or thieves wrapped a chain around the 5-foot-tall statue, secured the other end to a vehicle and hit the gas.

This is a poor church, not affiliated with the Catholic Archdiocese of Denver as it has its differences — small but significant — with Roman Catholicism.

When the news got out, people sent in donations, and about two months after the statue was stolen, the church dedicated a new one: St. Francis, gleaming white, a blue bird perched on his hand.

Credit: John Prieto, The Denver Post

And now this.

“St. Francis was attacked again,” Father John tells me in an e-mail.

I call him in disbelief. “What?”

The statue wasn’t stolen this time, he says. This time, someone or someones went after it with some kind of tool until the head smashed and the face came off.

“This was brutal,” he says, sounding weary. “Somebody has real issues. Whoever did it just beat on the statue, just beat on the head. The whole face came off in one piece.”

When Father John first discovered it Wednesday, he called a television reporter and a short piece aired. Afterward, he wondered whether it was the right thing to do. He wonders, even now, whether more publicity will just gratify the culprit. I don’t try to persuade him one way or another. As I said, it’s hard to know the mind of a vandal. Maybe, Father John decides, more publicity will prompt someone to come forward.

“Let’s face it,” he says. “These kind of crimes only get solved because someone comes forward, a witness or someone who knows something.”

It might not be the same person as last time, I say.

“There’s no way of knowing,” he says. “We suspect it’s an ongoing crime. It’s hard to accept that there would be more than one person out there who would do this.”

He tells me something he didn’t reveal before. About a week and a half after the statue was stolen, someone left a note on its concrete base. The letters were cut out of newspaper like a movie-version of a ransom note and said something like: ” ‘You will be struck,’ ” Father John said. “The police have it now.

“I’m a little discouraged and depressed,” he says. “I don’t understand the joy someone would get out of that. It’s a hateful action. It’s an act against the faithful.”

On Sunday, most of the congregation got its first look at the headless St. Francis. It’s a startling sight. Church members are angered and baffled and they compare it to recent attacks on statues at the Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden.

After Mass, Father John talks to the congregation. “I’m sure most of you, if not all of you, noticed that St. Francis was attacked again,” he starts, and the woman next to me starts to cry. He says he can’t figure out why someone would do this and that he no longer thinks this is a teenage prank. He says the good news, such as it is, is the statue might be reparable, but the church needs to figure out a way to protect it.

Someone out there is troubled, he says, so pray for him or her. Good came from bad last time, he tells them. It can again.

You may contact St. Francis Parish via their website to express your prayers and support.

Tags: ι ι ι Categories: Christian Witness, PNCC

The R.C. Church in Poland – one Dominican speaks

18 December 2010 - By

From Gazeta Wyborcza: A Dominican’s dramatic letter: The Sins of My Church (Dramatyczny list dominikanina: Winy mojego Kościoła)

Dominikanin o. Ludwik Wiśniewski, fot. Krzysztof Kuczyk/Agencja FORUM

Dominican Father Ludwik Wiśniewski sent a letter in September to the Vatican’s representative in Poland, Archbishop Celestina Migliore, recounting the major problems facing the Roman Catholic Church in Poland.

“All is not well with the Polish Church. It is large, colorful, impressive – but really is artificially inflated like a balloon. I’m afraid we do not appreciate the risks.”

Rev. Wiśniewski is a famous university chaplain who, in Communist times, signed the first declaration of the Civil Rights movement in Poland. The East German secret police, Stasi, considered him one of the sixty most dangerous persons in the Polish opposition.

The eight page letter presents an unusually severe diagnosis of the Polish Church’s problems. Among the problems he notes:

  • Scandalous division within the Polish episcopate: Bishops work against each other by using the facade of Catholic faith to divide society and the Church into rival political camps and causes. These efforts are in effect “pagan as they inflame and divide society and the Church itself.” He noted the recent example of some Bishops writing to major newspapers in support of the “Defenders of the Cross” protests in front of Poland’s Presidential Palace.
  • Politics over the Gospel: Half of the priests are “infected with xenophobia, nationalism and shamefully hidden anti-Semitism.” He notes that these priests have lost sight of the boundaries between the gospel and politics. They use vulgarities in the pulpit to condemn or support specific political parties and politicians.
  • A lack of discipline: By example he notes the unresolved issue of Radio Maryja, where in addition to prayer, people “learn fanaticism, resentment and even hatred for those who think differently” from a member of the clergy.
  • An inability to communicate: The hierarchy is unable to communicate with changing world. Their communications are meant to convey pronounced conviction, zeal, zest, and great confidence, but in the opinion of professionals, they come across as incompetent.

Rev. Wiśniewski proposes a “great debate” that will “restore the true” face “of the church.” This debate should be given to the care of special teams under the auspices of one of the major bishops. This should include a team “to address the issue of education and religious education of children and young people” as well as an assessment of the activity of clergy in the media, particularly that of Rev. Tadeusz Rydzyk, director of Radio Maryja.

Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek called the letter a moving call to repair the church.

Tags: ι ι ι Categories: Christian Witness, Poland - Polish - Polonia

A year of remembrance for two Polish greats

13 December 2010 - By

2010 marked the Year of Frederick Chopin. The year 2010 was the 200th anniversary of the birth of this eminent figure. There were great celebrations and concerts as well as piano competitions throughout the world and in particular in Poland in his honor.

We also celebrated another important figure in the history of arts, literature, and particularly poetry in Poland, Maria Konopnicka. 2010 marked the 100th anniversary of her passing. Maria Konopnicka is beloved of the Polish National Catholic Church in particular. Bishop Hodur established societies in her honor, as well in honor of Juliusz Słowacki, so as to promote literature and arts among Polish immigrants to the United States.

The following article appeared in the September 21, 2010 edition of God’s Field, written by the Very Rev. Frederyk Banas: Maria Konopnicka, May 23, 1842 – October 8, 1910, Poland’s Great Poetess

October 8, 2010 marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Poland’s great poetess, Maria Konopnicka. It was at the time of her death in 1910 that our beloved Organizer, the late Prime Bishop Franciszek Hodur was in Poland and learned of the death of this great woman after whom he had already organized societies in his church in the United States. The Roman Church refused her burial considering her an enemy and heretic because she had the courage to speak and write of the evils in the Church of Rome and its exploitation of the poor.

The family of the late poetess learned of the presence of Prime Bishop Hodur in Poland and requested that he conduct the funeral service. However, after hearing of this, the Roman hierarchy had changed its mind and decided to conduct the funeral service for her. Bishop Hodur presented his message and placed a large wreath with the inscription: “To Poland’s Great Poetess from the Polish National Catholic Church in the United States.”

The late Prime Bishop Francis Hodur in his introductory comments to the first volume of poetry published by the United Ladies’ Maria Konopnicka Societies in Scranton, PA, in 1946 said:

“Maria Konopnicka is not only the greatest poetess of the Polish people, but we can say without exaggeration, that she is the greatest poet of the human race. Before her, three women have gained fame as poets, namely: Deborah, living in the 11th century before Christ, living in that era which was known as the period of Judges; Sapphonia, living near the end of the 7th century on the island of Lesbos in Greece, and Ada Negri, living at the end of the 19th century in Italy and a contemporary of Maria Konopnicka.

History tells us that Deborah was a prophetess a judge and a poet. She wrote patriotic songs calling the Jewish people to fight for their freedom and liberty; these songs were sung either by her when she led the soldiers into battle, or by others designated by her.

Sapphonia was a poet of nature. She wrote beautiful poems about the mountains, the forests, the valleys and about all of those beautiful things which spoke to the human heart and soul and which were found on the island of Lesbos. She was persecuted to such an extent that she had to leave and return to southern Italy in order to save her life. After a few years, guided by the love of her home country, she returned to Lesbos and lived out her remaining years.

Ada Negri is truly the daughter of the Italian people. She was born into the family of a poor Italian workman. In spite of extraordinary material difficulties, she secured an adequate education and became a school teacher. She began to write and speak of the poverty of the Italian people. She spoke of the wrongs suffered by the Italian peasant and workman, and as a result of this, she lost her job as a school teacher and was persecuted. After the peasants and workmen received some recognition in the nation, she became very popular and was respected and even practically glorified by her people.

Maria Konopnicka united in her person the talents of the three mentioned immortal names. She was the poetess of her people. She did not lead her people into battle in the common meaning of the term as did Deborah, but she carried on the spiritual battle, calling for more education, equality of all people who constitute the nation, and prophesied victory for the Polish people when justice among them would be satisfied. She loved the natural beauty of the Polish landscape, the glorious majesty of the Tatra Mountains, the fields, streams, the gardens and the villages and all of those things which would foster love for the Fatherland.

She was disillusioned and disgusted with a visit to the Church of St. Joachim in Rome in which were placed all the national standards of all nations of the world, but among which the standard of Poland was not evident. She wrote of this bitterly saying, “Upon these marble walls where even the schismatic Lutheran has his place, this holy martyr for the Christian cause, this sacred Poland has been erased from among the nations of the earth as though anathemized.1” In a poem concerning the Church of Rome she speaks thusly:

O Rome! . . . How you have disappointed
     me, Rome!
You have not spread your wings over
     the brood as the hen does
When in Jerusalem the hawks hovered
     over the chicks,
No, you have hid in the smoke of your
     thuribles,
And with the hawks you have made
     alliance.
In the brightness of the feathers of
     peacocks you
Permit yourself to be carried, basking in
     the glory
Which you have torn out of the garment
     of Christ!

Maria Konopnicka struggled for social justice; she was the mediatrix of her people. She wrote of the oppressed, of the disinherited, the orphan and the poverty of her fellowman. The words which she uttered in receiving the gift of a home and a little parcel of land in Zamowiec, a gift of the Polish people in appreciation for her labor, sufferings and work on their behalf, could be interpreted as her will and testament: “On this occasion,” she said, “what do we need? … Love for the earth. Confessors for an ideal, education for the people, respect for work, soldiers for an idea, triumph for truth, unity and equality for all!”

Her principles and ideals were so closely related to those of our beloved Organizer, the late Prime Bishop Francis Hodur. Both lived and struggled for freedom, truth, equality, justice, education, brotherhood and enlightenment; Both were warriors for great causes and issues! People of this caliber are not born daily but are providential! Let us cherish their work and continue on the mission they have begun for causes so noble and holy which will make our Country and our Church great, free, and unique!

1 From “Do braci zmartwychwstańców.”

Tags: ι ι ι ι ι ι Categories: Christian Witness, PNCC, Poetry

Considering in Streator, IL

11 December 2010 - By

I had previous written on the parish closings occurring in Streator, IL (Roman Catholic Diocese of Peoria) in Another Sad Tale and More on Church Closings.

Two recent articles have appeared in MyWebTimes on the Polish National Catholic Church as a potential alternative for Streator Catholics wishing to find a Church that is both fully Catholic and democratically governed. I wish the Catholics of Streator well in their discernment process.

Having personally faced the pain of Parish closings I understand their hurt and anguish. Much can be gained from the experience of many former Roman Catholics in the Buffalo area who have formed at least two new PNCC Parishes. God works, through His grace, to bring good out of the pain and anguish we feel. Having found a wonderful spiritual home, a Church that is both fully Catholic and democratic in governance, and great personal comfort in the PNCC, I know this to be true. My thoughts and prayers are with you.

The article Independent, but traditional — Polish National Catholics practice Catholicism their way keys on the many of the issues Catholics find appealing about the PNCC:

Mike Sheridan is not alone.

The Streator Catholic is curious about the Polish National Catholic Church but does not know much about it.

Since the city’s four parishes merged to form St. Michael the Archangel Church, the Polish National has been brought up as an alternative, but no one has approached it about starting one.

Found on page 2 of the missalette in Streator church pews, the Roman Catholic church does not object to Polish National members receiving communion, but then how is it they are not affiliated with the pope or the Vatican?

Although completely independent of Rome, the church is representative of the first 1,000 years of the Roman Catholic Church, according to the Rev. Anthony Kopka, bishop of the PNCC’s Western Diocese in Chicago.

“That’s the best way to describe it,”Kopka said. “We are a Catholic church, there is apostolic succession, but we have honored no dogmas since 1054.”

Disgruntled with the structure of power in the Roman Catholic church, the PNCC broke away in 1897 to give Polish immigrants their own Catholic church to worship. At the time, there was concern Irish and German immigrants controlled too much power in the church.

Originally Polish, all ethnicites are welcome today. The church boasts more than 25,000 members nationally with 30 parishes in its Western Diocese alone. There are eight parishes in Illinois, with six in the Chicago area and one in suburban St. Louis. The closest is Holy Trinity Church in Kewanee.

Since its independence, theological and governmental differences were drawn.

The PNCC rejected the idea of papal infallibility, which meant the pope is preserved from the possibility of error when he solemnly declares a dogmatic teaching on faith.

“We believe no one is infallable in their teaching,” Prime Bishop Anthony Mikovski told The Times.

The church created its own structure of power with an emphasis on the parishioner.

Unlike the Roman Catholic church, members control the fate of their own parish. A committee of at least nine members is voted on by parishioners once a year. This committee controls the finances of the church and determines whether their parish needs to be closed.

The parish also elects a senator to represent it at the general synod. This is conducted every four years to discuss church matters and law.

A priest is appointed to a parish from the bishop of its diocese. The committee can then vote to accept or reject the appointment. Committee members also can hire or fire priests.

The priest serves as the parish’s spiritual leader and financial adviser. He makes no final decisions on the finances of the church.

“It’s up to us if we stay open,” said Resurrection Polish National Catholic Church parishioner Chris Cremean. “A church closes only if it runs out of money.”

…

In 1993, the Vatican’s Council for Promoting Christian Unity stated that PNCC members in the United States and Canada can receive Roman Catholic Communion and other sacraments, and the PNCC issued parallel guidelines in 1998.

…

Only time will tell if it is a viable option for alienated Streator Catholics.

Cremean said he likes the idea of having married priests that can relate to family life and enjoys the traditionalism practiced within the church.

“I feel like Ihave a parish I can call home for my family.”

The experience of parishioners from Toledo was highlighted in Polish National — Is it the answer for Streator Catholics?

Chris Cremean was once a “Roamin’ Catholic.”

His home parish in Toledo, Ohio closed in 2005 and he felt abandoned like many in Streator.

“I started to search for where my family would end up,” said the former St. Jude parishioner, noting there were at least 40 others like him. “We were looking for something traditionally Catholic and something that was ours — that our parish could say we owned.”

He had never heard of the Polish National Catholic Church in his hours of study on the issue, but it would provide him with his answer. An answer he suggests to the others he refers to as “Roamin’ Catholics.”

“It’s not for everyone, there are a few differences (from the Roman Catholic church),” Cremean said. “It’s an option that caters most to those who want a say in their own parish. Parishioners control their own parish.”

Groups like Save the Catholic Parishes in Streator wished they had more say in the merging of their four parishes into St. Michael the Archangel.

A handful of St. Jude parishioners found a Polish National church on a trip to Hamtramck, Mich. Impressed by its hospitality, the group discovered a small church with apostolic succession and no attachment to the diocese that closed them. In 1897, Pope Leo XIII recognized the Polish National as a Catholic church.

Within three years, St. Jude parishioners had their own parish in a Toledo suburb called Resurrection Polish National Catholic Church.

“We found our home,” Cremean said. “You don’t have to be Polish to start a parish.”

…

Like in Streator, when the Catholic Diocese of Toledo closed 17 parishes, it was met with disagreement. Cremean’s home parish St. Jude filed two rounds of appeals to Rome to save their parish.

The Polish National Catholic Church has its own dioceses, but the dioceses cannot close a parish; that must be done by a board of parishioners.

The Rev. Anthony Kopka, bishop of the Western Diocese in Chicago, said no one in Streator has expressed an interest in starting a Polish National Catholic Church.

“I think a lot of people would be interested in finding out more about (the PNCC),” said St. Anthony parishioner Mike Sheridan. “I feel so many are still alienated. Some are still sad and some are very angry. People have thrown it out as an option, but I just don’t know.”

Kopka said anyone interested in starting a parish in Streator would have to contact him and then he would send out the Rev. Jaroslaw Rafalko from Holy Trinity Parish in Kewanee — about 75 miles west of Streator.

About 20 parishioners are all that is needed for a charter, said Cremean. Resurrection had 40 members to start and the priest from Hamtramck conducted Mass. Services were conducted at rented halls and churches until a combination of fundraisers and a loan from the PNCC provided a new building in 2008…

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