Reflection on the 53rd Anniversary of the death of Bishop Francis Hodur
February 16th is the 53rd Anniversary of the death of the organizer and first bishop of the Polish National Catholic Church, Francis Hodur.
My thoughts on this day focus on thanksgiving for this man of Christ. I thank our Lord Jesus Christ for everything he experienced, for every blessing and hardship he received. Each of these made him the servant of God that he was. They built his character as well as the mental and physical fortitude that allowed him to proclaim God’s Word across the globe.
He knew poverty because he was poor. He knew the desire for education because it had been denied to him for ten years. He knew hard work because he worked hard. He knew struggle because he struggled. He knew persecution because he had been persecuted. He knew the sweetness of freedom because he and his people had been denied freedom. Most of all he knew Jesus Christ because throughout it all Jesus was his focus and his goal.
I love reading his works and his homilies. His talks, the minutes of meetings and synods in which he played a key role, each speak of a man of God who wanted only to connect the poor to the love of God.
On this day I reflect on the events of 1897. A group of disaffected and brokenhearted parishioners from Scranton, Pennsylvania showed up at the door of his parish in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania.
I can see the faces of these people. They were definitely not wealthy. They were poor coal miners and laborers, housewives. All of them were regular people.
Nanticoke is about thirty miles from Scranton. The distance is not easy. It is hilly and rugged. This is 1897. There were no cars or buses. They were poor so the idea of using a horse or carriage was beyond their means. They probably walked. They had to get there and get back because the mine and factory whistle didn’t wait.
They stood there and asked to see Father Francis. He invited them inside. He listened to them.
They sacrificed so much so that the body and blood of our Lord could reside in a beautiful place. They gave up their pennies so that God might be glorified. For their sacrifice they had been mocked, laughed at, physically beaten, dragged to prison, and locked out. Their blood was not only in the walls of the church, it was upon the walls.
They sat around the table by candle light. Father Francis listened to them. He said, I will bring Christ to you. Like Christ, I will serve you and I will help you.
Father Hodur did not serve them by pandering to the people. He did not serve up an easily digestible meal. He called them to the things of God. He called them commit to Christ and to build the kingdom. He told them to study, to learn, to be self-reliant. He held them accountable for their sins and steered them back to Christ whenever they veered.
Father Francis not only called on them to do things, but provided for the means by which Christ’s work was to be done.
Father Francis did not believe in a half-way God. He believed in God; the one, the almighty, the ageless. He maintained them in the catholic faith. He built churches to the honor of Jesus’ name. He founded institutions of learning, fellowship, and mutual support. He taught the people and informed them. Most of all he worked with them. Christ always in front, the clergy and the people following Him and tending to God’s field.
Thank you Lord Jesus.
Thank you for the gift that Bishop Hodur was for us.
Thank you for the gift and charism that he is today.
As he was faithful to You, may we be faithful.
As he taught may we teach.
As he served, may we serve.
May the Holy Clergy following in his footsteps be inspired by his example.
May Your clergy and Your people work together,
Reborn, regenerated, and committed to Your Kingdom.
Amen.
thank you for this wonderful information. i will share it among my fellow seminarians tomorrow at our worship service.
How do you answer the objections that Hodur was theologically liberal – the denial of an eternal hell, making Confession optional, the liturgical experimentation with a simplified Mass facing the people, the intercommunion with the Episcopal Church?
ISTM the PNCC had a kind of tension between his liberalism and the cultural traditionalism of the Polish people, the latter keeping him in check and giving the church its flavour.
There was also the affect Utrecht had on the Church.
To your question on eternal hell, in my personal opinion, what seemed liberal on the outside was a deeper theological approach and reflection on the question of eternal damnation and salvation.
When I was in the Roman Catholic seminary many of the same questions were being posited (early 1980’s). I specifically remember a dialog on the possibility of losing salvation once you have attained heaven. If the beatific vision precludes using free will to choose other than God, then why Lucifer? If it does not, are people changing their option as it were? I remember, at the time, the thought scared me.
Not that you couldn’t argue – sure seminary in the United States – liberal bunk.
You may also recall a recent on-line conversation about pergination – can’t remember the exact term – a sort of purgatory that burns away any remaining good before one reaches hell.
I am deeply fascinated by the issue of free will after our death. Can choices be made? If so, what would preclude someone from choosing heaven? How do we define evil? Must evil be personified or is the inclination to evil self sustaining? If someone revels in evil all their life to the point where there is no inclination to good – would that person’s personal choosing bind them to hell while others might pay their debt and be taken up?
I am a lowly deacon and certainly not a theologian or philosopher. For me, the exact definition of it all is of lesser consequence than the knowledge that we must struggle – and make the positive choice for Christ – while working out our salvation in fear and tembling.
As to the Episcopal Church issue, I think it was what was left over from the rapprochement between the Episcopalians and the Orthodox and the PNCC. Thank God that when the PNCC saw the ECUSA and Utrecht greasing the skids to – well wherever they will go – we ran from them as fast as we could. It is also my opinion that the Church in Poland will face the same issues with Utrecht.
I can’t really speak to the issue on the Sacrament of Penance. I was not aware of any significant departure.
On the Holy Mass, again, not aware of any significant departure other than the use of the vernacular (one particular parish used Latin right up through the mid 1960’s), The “ad orientam†vs. “versus populum†is a non issue I think. I’ve seen both and I think it is completely up to the pastor of the parish.
As you note, based on our heritage, but also, based on our ecclesiology and teaching, the PNCC is far and away more conservative than any R.C. parish I have been in. It’s what I found that particularly reached my heart and soul. I refer to it as an active acknowledgment of the communion of the saints. It is not just us today, me, myself, and I, it is the Church eternal. What goes forward stretches back. You cannot throw that out and still have Church.
Getting back to your original point, in my learning process (still on-going, never ceasing) I find a synodal Church. A Church that melds the East and West. Bishop Hodur was not a lone wolf or a dictator. He definitely exercised his verbal and written skills to move the people, and was a shepherd and leader. In the end however, he was a bishop in a synodal Church. And synods keep the ideas of one subject to the Sacred Tradition of the Faith.
Thank you for the comment and for your blogging efforts at CBfP.
I understand that Utrecht was orthodox and liturgically conservative until around the 1970s. Then when Rome caught pneumonia the Old Catholics got lung cancer…
Maybe the old-school Old Catholics and his own people kept Hodur in line.
I’ve only seen two PNCC churches and have not been to a service, but your cathedral church’s site has excellent links for a liturgical church visitor like me. One can see several PNCC churches from the inside all from one’s computer! Anyway, while it’s not the traditionalist oasis I might like it to be, thanks to Polish conservatism several of them are charming, in better taste than the Novus Ordo. What things Roman should be.
Good to know that some PNCCs still do ad orientem. I’d read somewhere that the PNCC version of the Tridentine Mass was endangered and the ‘Contemporary Mass’, the NOish one, had taken over everywhere.
But I can’t view Hodur as a hero because that schism and his participation in it went against Catholic principles – it was nothing to do with faith or morals and he went against his bishop. (Even though the Irish did treat the Poles badly.) It seems to me it shouldn’t have happened. Then the Old Catholic pose against the papacy was adopted after the fact.
I’m personally not offended by apocatastasis but understand that technically it’s heresy – it violates free will.
Good point about free will in heaven – why Lucifer? Never thought of it that way, nor had I heard of an anti-purgatory. (Dziekuje! You made me think.) The common orthodox understanding (opinion) is we choose while we’re here; once the body dies, we’ve made our choice and have to live with it for ever. Which is fine with me.
(There’s also the orthodox opinion that there may be no humans in hell – but because of free will one has to affirm the terrifying possibility of going there.)
I thought that Hodur made going to confession for any reason optional for adults. Was I told wrong?
As to the Episcopal Church issue, I think it was what was left over from the rapprochement between the Episcopalians and the Orthodox and the PNCC.
The Episcopalians and the Orthodox were never in communion. There was already intercommunion between the Church of England and Utrecht since 1930 so maybe the 1946 agreement was gilding the lily. Yes, thank God the PNCC were sound so they rescinded that when ECUSA ordained women, and even had the guts to break with Utrecht over that and the possibility of gay weddings. (Again, got to love that Polish conservatism.)
I thought from your name that you might be a born ‘Nat’.
Where do most of the PNCC clergy come from, generational members or former RCs, if you don’t mind my asking?
(I can respect any church with real congregations and generational members as somehow real, even if I don’t agree with it.)
I noticed on some of the PNCC parish sites that they seem to be sales-pitching liberal dissenter RCs, which I don’t like. Is there so much attrition from their ethnic base that they feel they have to do this? (I can understand dropping ‘Polish’ and being a ‘National Catholic Church’ – most of the born members aren’t from Poland.) ‘A Western church free from Roman jurisdiction’ is such a negative way to define oneself. Reminds me of ‘The Simpsons” Dr Nick Riviera, whose Yellow Pages ad promises ‘I’m just as good as Dr Hibberd!’ Or ‘Miata: The Porsche of Cars’ or something like that…
And when all one’s saints and devotions came from Rome it seems a bit ungrateful.
Thank you for your answer and for linking to my blog.
Thanks for your comments. This is what I love about blogging – good discussion and a chance to learn.
I’ll do my best to answer some of the questions you asked.
There are three options for Holy Mass – Traditional (Tridentine), the Hodur Mass (quasi-Tridentine. My parish does it once a year on the Solemnity of the Institution of the PNCC – March 12th this year) and Contemporary (N.O. but with some non-modification – for instance the Canon still says ‘which shall be shed for you and for many…’ and some other differences – kind of where the traditional text modifications envisioned by Rome over the objections of the ICEL are going).
I heard a story once that a priest had brought an Altar ‘table’ into a parish and had it installed. During the week the congregation assembled and carried it right out of the building.
Confession/Penance is not optional. For children under the age of eighteen private auricular confession is required. For adults, general absolution is given at every Holy Mass as part of the penitential rite. The penitential rite is a bit longer in the PNCC. Generally each parish offers two special penitential services each year, one in Lent and one in Advent, with a more detailed examination of conscience, etc. Adults may avail themselves of private auricular confession at any time.
I understand that. I think there was some moves in that direction which I gleaned from your post of January 10, 2006 Anglo-Catholicism and St. Tikhon at Episcopal bishop’s consecration in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin
I think it is a mix, both as to membership and clergy. In my Seniorate (deanery) we have two native born clergy and five immigrant clergy.
In my parish the founding members’ families still actively participate. I would guess that generational members represent about 65% of the parish. Our eldest living member, age 94, recently passed away. In our parish there are very few members who are even remotely conversant in Polish. I think the Church reflects the country and the community it is in. Ours is particularly diverse.
I don’t have any inside information on the total size of membership. A wiki on the issue which pegs it at 30,000 to 60,000.
No problem.
That’s what I was referring to.
As you probably know, using general absolution as a substitute for confessing mortal sins ‘one to one’ in the hearing of a priest is an abuse, a Protestant dodge used by Cranmer (though he wrote some beautiful prayers for that) and favoured by RC liberals today.
‘Battlefield absolutions’ in an emergency are allowed (I know a priest who did that for firemen on 9/11 -they died in the WTC) but I think the people have to confess at the first opportunity if they survive.
That’s not the same as the Confiteor in the Roman Mass, which is symbolic – Holy Communion remits venial sins. Anglo-Catholics interpret the Cranmerian prayers that way but he meant to get rid of private confession.
As you might remember, in RC culture making a practice optional is a euphemism for in fact suppressing it.
Good to know that PNCC services are better all round than the ICEL NO.
Are the immigrant priests ex-RCs or born members of the Polish Catholic Church?
Something that’s 65 per cent generational sounds real and not like a spite church of people simply angry at another church.
Many thanks again and I’d welcome your comments in my blog.
P.S. I see that your church isn’t the cathedral – my mistake. Good site though.
The confession absolution issue is a point of departure. I will have to check into the PNCC-RC dialog documents to see what perspectives were offered.
Our understanding is that confession is required and is sacramental. The methodology is really the departure point.
I agree about the optional part – optional is a euphemism for suppressed. It’s tragic because a lay person, generally not having a background in theology, is not going to understand, grasp, or accept change at an integrated level. I have a better than lay understanding of issues, yet when I was confronted by, ‘oh that isn’t so important’ it sounded more like ‘you aren’t so important’.
TANGENT AHEAD
I know that there is an on-going effort to get medical student, interns, and residents to have a better bedside manner. Perhaps certain clergy need that as well. They can relate spiritually and theologically – but just maybe we need to relate humanely as well.
When I was R.C. and an extraordinary minister of communion, I had a hospital ministry. I took the time to know the patient and any family who were present. I tried really hard not to rush Jesus’ presence. At the same time I’ve seen the sacrament of the sick and Eucharist distributed in hospitals, to people about to undergo a major heart procedure, delivered by a priest in a perfunctory manner. One instance of many…
TANGENT OVER
As to the percentage of generational believers, our parish is in a major metropolitan area. Some of the smaller rural and urban parishes have a much higher percentage of generational believers.
As to the status of clergy, I don’t know everyone’s personal story, and don’t want to guess. I can say that our pastor is ex-RC.
Our Church was done beautifully. While the style is more modern, the windows and statuary were integrated. The reredos was hand carved by our Fr. Senior (equivalent to a Monsignor). He also did the Cathedral in Buffalo (actually Lancaster). The effect there is spectacular as he integrated various shadings of wood. His St. Paul is phenomenal).
Thank you for the comment on the site. Need to get it updated with the proper liturgical color – Septuagesima is over now…