From the Denver Post: Griego: Theft at church rallies goodwill

St. Francis of Assisi (Polish) National Catholic Church, from which the statue of St. Francis was stolen sometime the evening of July 30, is a small building tucked off South Jersey Street and East Leetsdale Avenue. “You know where the McDonald’s is? We’re right across the street,” the Rev. John Kalabokes says.

Despite the name, the Polish National Catholic Church has not served a predominantly Polish congregation for a long time. Kalabokes, you might notice, has a distinctly Greek ring to it. Father John is, in fact, the grandson of Greeks, with a little Italian thrown in. He grew up in the Greek Orthodox Church, though he attended Sunday school with a Methodist friend. Young John Kalabokes had long been inclined to the life of the soul, though he did not become a priest until he was in his 50s. Ask him how this came to pass, and he will say: “I finally relented.”

The name, PNCC, speaks to the church’s organization in the late 1800s by Polish immigrants to the United States who could not find a home within the Roman Catholic Church. The PNCC shares more in common with the Roman Catholic Church than it does not, but the differences are significant, and among them are that the PNCC does not adhere to the belief in papal infallibility. Also among the differences, its priests are allowed to marry after ordination. Father John is a husband, father and grandfather.

This little church was started by a former Episcopalian priest named Father Mustoe. The building once housed a pediatric practice. The congregation, most of them older, many on fixed incomes, worked themselves to transform the offices into the lovely, light-filled church it became. They celebrated their first Mass in the building on Easter Sunday in 1990. Eighteen joyful people sitting on lawn chairs.

Every year, St. Francis of Assisi runs at a deficit, and every year the financial secretary warns Father John they might not make it. But they do.

In the past couple years, the congregation has doubled in size to about 50 people who sit in their regular spots and listen to Father John sing the Mass. They are a family in Christ, yes, but a human family as well. So it was not from a building that vandals stole a statue. It was from them.

The St. Francis statue stood about 5 feet tall. It was located at the front doors of the church and so greeted all who entered. It was white and constructed from fiberglass and so was not particularly heavy, but the parishioner who installed it 12 years ago did so with attention to detail and the desire to prevent the wind from knocking it over.

Given this, Father John speculates the thieves, or, as he says, the kidnappers, wrapped the saint in a chain, attached the chain to a truck and hit the gas. Father John suspects the perpetrator(s) might be teenagers out getting their kicks. It could have been someone who simply coveted the piece, though it’s hard to imagine anyone knowingly stealing the replica of a saint who turned his back on worldly possessions.

The theft of St. Francis was discovered Saturday morning by the woman who tends the flowers in the church yard.

“It was devastating,” Father John says. “We all got a little angry about the theft, the kidnapping, but if we know and practice our faith, we will forgive, and we pray for the thieves. We don’t expect to ever get the statue back.”

Here is what happens after the theft. Father John calls a few media folks. Parishioner Thomas Lynch calls a few others. Stories hit the air that weekend. We run a brief story that Sunday. Checks start coming in. Not a lot of them. But just enough. They amount to about $1,500 and come from outside the parish. From a neighbor. From one of Father John’s former bosses from his days in the information-technology field. One comes from a former parishioner, the very same man who had installed the first statue.

By Wednesday, Father John had already picked out a new statue. On Sunday, he told his parishioners he’d placed the order.

“The congregation burst into applause,” Lynch tells me. “It was really moving.”

It was Lynch who called me over the weekend. He sounded jubilant. “There are so many good people in this world,” he says, “and they cared enough to help this little church.”

Father John believes good will come from bad. It has already, he says. The reunion with the former parishioner, the reaffirmation of goodness in people, the attention to a church that has otherwise gone unnoticed. He says he hopes the statue arrives by early October. He will ask all who desire to bring their pets to the church in honor of St. Francis, the patron saint of animals, and under the beneficent eye of the new statue, he will offer both his thanks and his blessing.