Some old news, some upcoming…
Polish National Union of America, District 3, 2010 Children’s Day
Saturday —“ June 19, 2010, 3 P.M. —“ Tail Gate Party at Holy Cross Parish in Central Falls, RI (with hot dogs, hamburgers, kielbasa, chips & soda provided) followed by the Pawtucket Red Sox vs. Columbus Clippers at McCoy Stadium, Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The game begins at 6:05 P.M. District 3 has procured box seats. PNU District 3 Children are free of charge. Adults and non-Spojnia members at $14 per person. A limited number of tickets are available on a first come first serve basis. For additional information and/or reservations please contact either:
Fr. Rob Nemkovich
37 Winthrop Street
Fall River, MA 02721
(508) 672-4854
or
Dorothy Stahelski
280 Valley View Drive
Westfield, MA 01085
(413) 562-9297
From The Day: Church site blessed with new mission: Help homeless. Sts. Peter and Paul in NL to become emergency shelter
New London – Sometime in the coming months, the handful of parishioners at Sts. Peter and Paul Polish National Catholic Church will celebrate the final Mass in their modest white church on a hill.
But as much as it will be an ending for the 88-year-old church, it will also be a beginning.
The congregation has plans to sell the church, the rectory next door and its half-acre of land on State Pier Road to the Homeless Hospitality Center, which will use the property for its emergency shelter and offices.
“It is a continuation of the church’s mission,” the Rev. Stanley Kaszubski, the church’s priest for the past 10 years, said. “It will help people who are in need.”
Colleen Rzepniewski Pinckney, whose grandparents helped found the church, was pleased that the building will going to an organization that “is doing God’s work.”
Pinckney’s husband Richard, the parish’s chairman who maintains the buildings, said it’s hard to continue running the church with the five or six people out of 30-member congregation who regularly attend services.
But they aren’t a meek lot.
The six members in the pews Sunday, sang “How Great Thou Art,” at full volume, and got an enthusiastic ceremony from Kaszubski who travels to St. Peter and Paul from Manchester to say Mass.
“He’s very devoted,” June Gula, a lifelong parishioner, said.
Kaszubski will be seeking homes for St. Peter and Paul’s treasures, including its ornate white peaked altar with statues of Jesus and the church’s namesake saints, holding keys and a sword.
The fate of the church’s three crystal chandeliers, installed by Colleen Pinckney’s grandfather, whose demolition company recovered them from an old New London mansion, hasn’t been decided.
The church is a last vestige of old East New London, once home to many of the city’s Polish immigrants, who were dispersed in the early 1970s when the second span of the Gold Star Memorial Bridge rammed through the neighborhood.
Kaszubski is glad the property will be going to a community service organization.
“It’s not going to a company,’ he said. “It’s not going to be condominiums.”
The Homeless Hospitality Center, which currently operates an emergency shelter at St. James Episcopal Church on Federal Street, will need to install modern bathrooms and sprinkler systems before it can occupy the buildings.
After the shelter opens, the church will relocate to a small parlor in the rectory.
“There’s plenty of room for our books and the Stations of the Cross,” Richard Pinckney said.