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Welcome to the PNCC!

From Bishop Thaddeus Peplowski of the Buffalo-Pittsburgh Diocese in Acts: New Hope – New Vision – New Growth

This second decade of the Twenty First Century promises a sturdy and sure foundation for the Polish National Catholic Church. We enter in the 114 Anniversary of the organization of the Church and the 104 Anniversary of the Consecration of the First Bishop, Francis Hodur in valid and licit Apostolic Succession. The fact that we have preserved our Holy Orders in an unbroken line with the first Holy Apostles, has ignited the flame of a New Hope and an enlightened vision for the future growth and expansion of the Polish National Catholic Church. Our battle cry for success continues to inspire people in other nations to follow our lead in preserving the concept of National Catholic Churches in which: “By Truth, Work and Struggle, We Shall Succeed!”

I have just returned from a successful missionary visit to both Germany and Italy where there are both former Anglican and Old Catholic Parishes and Communities that are disillusioned over the questionable validity of some doctrines and sacraments that are being practiced in those Churches. They respect the decision that our bishops took in 2003 at the Bishop’s Conference in Prague in breaking official ties with European Old Catholic Churches. There are many clergy and lay members who feel the same way and want to be in union with our church. They are asking that we listen to their pleas and offer some type of accommodations that will allow them to be in Communion with the Polish National Catholic Church. The purpose of the “Union of Scranton” was proposed so that they might find a haven that will continue to maintain the traditional Old Catholic teachings and practices.

In Germany, I was invited to visit a former Old Catholic Monastic Abbey that follows the Cistercian Rule and they are looking for union with an on-going traditional Old Catholic Church. The Polish National Catholic Church is the only Old Catholic Body that fits that criteria, so through the influence of Father Roald Flemested of the Nordic Catholic Church, they were directed to contact me. We met with Abbot Klaus Schlapps at St. Severn’s Abbey in Kaufberuren, Bavaria. This Abbey also serves about 100 members of a Parish Church St. Lucas in the town of Kaufberuren. There are priests, brothers and nuns who make up this Order and serve five other Old Catholic Congregations in Germany. There are also possibilities of accepting other groups in France, Switzerland and five Parishes in Cameroon, Africa. The talks appear to be very positive for establishing relations that could include them in the Union of Scranton.

We traveled nine hours by train from Bavaria through Austria and the Swiss Alps to the famous city of Turin, the permanent home of the Shroud of Turin. Our missionary endeavor was successful there for now have three Parishes in Italy: St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish in Luca with Fr. Claudio Boca as Pastor; Merciful Jesus Parish in Turin with Fr. Giuseppe Biancotti as its Pastor, and Holy Spirit Parish in Sabaudia with Fr. Luciano Bruno as its Pastor. Another Parish is in the process of being organized near Pizza by Father Gastone Bernacchi, whom I ordained on Saturday, January 15th. Two of these Parishes were formerly Old Catholic Congregations under the Bishop of Switzerland. Inquiries are also coming from other former Anglican and Old Catholic Communities who see in the PNCC the traditional catholic teachings and Apostolic Orders that are vital signs of being a part of the true Church of Jesus Christ.

Too often we America National Catholics take our Church for granted and feel that we belong to a small, little known denomination that no one knows or cares about. The Polish National Catholic Church however, is greatly admired by people throughout the world as being a Church of great faith and conviction, and they seek to be one with us because we maintain the traditional signs of a true Church, for we are: One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic in preserving a very orthodox and traditional faith. For these very reasons, we should continue to have Hope and New Vision for the future growth and expansion of the National Catholic Church’s expression of the true faith.

In 2011, let us take the example of our newest mission fields where people are very open and positive about expressing their joy of being a part of the PNCC and because of their new or refound faith, they are not afraid to talk to others about what the Church means in their lives. We need to stop standing along the side lines and criticizing what is happening and get out into the mainstream of life and tell others about the Church. Our words and actions are positive seeds that will cause the PNCC to grow not only in new mission fields, but also blossom and bear fruit right in our own hometown congregations. All it takes is faith, and God will do the rest.

Current Events, PNCC,

Meet my Bishop

My new diocesan bishop, the Rt. Rev. John E. Mack, took the helm of the Central Diocese of the PNCC, as well as the mother church of the PNCC, St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr Cathedral, on February 1, 2011.

Bishop Mack has served for the past four years as the auxiliary bishop of the Buffalo-Pittsburgh Diocese and has been longtime pastor of Holy Trinity Parish in Washington, Pennsylvania.

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

Bishop Mack and his wife Sherry have three children, aged 17, 20 and 23.

May God grant him many years. Welcome and Sto Lat! Bishop Mack.

Events, PNCC, ,

Help Father Gary get out of jail

Father Gary Spencer of Holy Trinity Parish in Woodlawn, New York is in jail — and needs your help. From Fr. Gary:

I’m excited to tell you that I have chosen to serve as an MDA Jailbird and am being Locked-Up…that’s right, I’m going behind bars to help Jerry’s Kids. In order to be released on good behavior, I need your help to raise my “bail.”

My bail has been set at $1,600 and if everyone I know makes a tax-deductible donation, I’ll reach my goal quickly!

Make a secure, online donation before 02/15/11. This is a fun event benefiting individuals and families served by MDA who are affected by neuromuscular disease. I am honored to partner with MDA, and help this important cause.

Thanks in advance for your help. Together we’ll make a difference!

Father Gary

He’s really a great priest and friend. Help him get out of the slammer.

PNCC, , , , , , , ,

Church controversies

From the Bloomington Pantagraph: Streator parish mired in $35,000 dispute

STREATOR — The 86-year-old former head of the now-defunct Altar & Rosary Society of St. Casmir Roman Catholic Church had to make a trip to the police station Tuesday to explain why her organization did not steal $35,622 that a monsignor says belongs to the parish.

Dorothy Swital said she told the police the money was raised by her society and did not belong to the church, so the society was within its rights to transfer the two certificates of deposit to the newly created Altar Society of the Polish National Alliance in Streator. She said the new group’s mission is the same as its predecessor’s: raise money to aid the Catholic Church’s work.

Monsignor John Prendergast, who heads the St. Michael the Archangel Parish, which was created by the consolidation of four parishes last fall, called the transfers “unauthorized withdrawals” from a church account.

No charges were filed as of Tuesday. Police declined to comment on the investigation.

Prendergast said Tuesday that Swital was given “ample opportunity” to resolve the dispute without it going to the police and the public. He said now that the matter is in police hands, he cannot comment, other than to say “the church has survived for 2,000 years and it will survive this.”

The dispute is part of a continuing feud between some parishioners of the defunct Streator parishes and the Peoria Diocese and Prendergast. The diocese opted to close St. Stephen’s, St. Anthony’s, Immaculate Conception, and St. Casimir’s parishes and merge them into the new parish to cut costs and revitalize the Catholic Church community in the city, Prendergast said previously.

In a letter to Swital made public this week, the monsignor vowed to bring charges against her if she did not return the money by Feb. 4. With that deadline passed and the police complaint filed, Swital said she was asked by the police department to come in and make her statement.

“We raised that money,” Swital said Tuesday. “Any time they (the church) needed it for something, we’d give it to them.”

None of the money came from church collections, she said…

Also see State’s attorney to review Streator church funds

Of note, in the PNCC, Church organizations like the Women’s Adoration Society, YMS of R, and parent groups supporting the parish Schools of Christian Living are all independent and answerable only to their individual constitutions and membership. Of course they actively support their parishes and do thousands of positive and valuable things for the Church and their parishes. As with the ladies mentioned above, these societies are formed, organized, and governed on a principal of love for the Church and its mission. Clerical control is not what is necessary, but a community that abides by the democratic principals which subsists in the PNCC. For instance, per the Constitution of the PNCC:

ARTICLE V, SECTION 8. All of the funds, moneys and property, whether real or personal, belong to those members of the Parish who conform to the Rites, Constitution, Principles, Laws, Rules, Regulations, Customs and Usages of this Church, and subject to the provisions of this Constitution and Laws.

Similar statements are contained in the constitutions of the various Church Societies. For instance, the Constitution of the National United Women’s Societies for the Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament notes that the “Pastor serves as the Society’s spiritual advisor” (Article IV, Administration, Section 4). Funds are used in keeping with the Society’s mission and goals (Article II, Purpose, and Article III Membership and Responsibilities). Each Society controls its own funds (Article V, Dues and Funds) through its votes and elected officers (Article IV, Administration, Sections 1 and 2).

Also note, per the Church Constitution, the Pastor doesn’t control the existence and development of Church Societies, but supports them, seeing to fertile ground so that they may exist and develop.

ARTICLE XIV, SECTION 4. [The Pastor] organizes and is responsible for the conduct of a School of Christian Living, the Standard Church Societies and, whenever and if possible, a Polish School. He shall particularly take care that the School of Christian Living and the Standard Church Societies established by the Synods shall exist and develop within his Parish.

Chicago Now looks back in history at the conflict that led to the founding of an independent Polish Catholic Church in Chicago (which later became part of the PNCC) in Civil War at St. Hedwig (2-9-1895). Note the key phrase I have highlighted:

Like the flag of Poland, there was white and red. Blood was on the snow outside St. Hedwig church–and a bit of red pepper.

St. Hedwig parish had been founded in 1888 to serve Polish Catholics in Bucktown. The pastor was Rev. Joseph Barzynski. He was a member of a religious order–the Congregation of the Resurrection, or Resurrectionists.

Now, in the early months of 1895, the parish was engulfed in civil war. One faction supported the pastor. The other side had gathered around Rev. Anthony Kozlowski, the young assistant who’d recently arrived from Poland. Kozlowski was not a Resurrectionist.

Depending on which side you listened to, there were many reasons for the conflict. Was Kozlowski attempting a power-play to become pastor? Were the Resurrectionists too autocratic? Was someone stealing money from the St. Hedwig treasury? What role should lay people play in a parish? Who should hold title to parish property?

A majority of the parishioners backed Kozlowski. There were protests at Sunday Mass. The police placed guards at the church. On the evening of February 7, the situation turned violent.

About 3,000 people, mostly women, tried to storm the parish rectory. The pastor and his new assistant barricaded themselves inside. The police guard called for backup…

Christian Witness, Perspective, PNCC, , , ,

The concept of assent in a democratic Church

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.

Christian Witness, Perspective, PNCC, Political, , , , , ,

Idle hands are the devil’s tools

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.

PNCC, , , , ,

History of the National United Choirs Music Scholarship Program of the PNCC

The Music Scholarship Program was instituted on August 8, 1964 by the Sixth General Convention of the National United Choirs of the Polish National Catholic Church held in Carnegie, PA. The program was implemented at the Seventh General Convention, held in Cleveland, OH, on August 6, 1966, when the first awards were presented. The XII General Synod of the PNCC established the last Sunday in January as “Music Scholarship Sunday.”

The Music Scholarship program was instituted and tailored to develop musicians within the Polish National Catholic Church. The program was further expanded to establish a Chair of Music at the Savonarola Theological Seminary of our Church in Scranton, PA, and to also make scholarships available in other areas of music to enrich the musical life of the Church.

The Scholarship Program awards are divided into 2 categories: general scholarships and endowed scholarships.

General Scholarships

  • The Bishop Francis Hodur Award
  • The Bishop Francis Bonczak Awards
  • The Bishop Francis Bonczak Youth Awards
  • Church Music Award for Clergymen
  • The Bishop Thaddeus Zielinski Awards
  • Junior Incentive Awards

Endowed Scholarships

  • The Polish National Union Award
  • The Adam P. Pikulski Award
  • The Cecelia Shumlas Award
  • The Bishop Walter A. Slowakiewicz Award
  • The Emil Swantkowski Award
  • The George J. Balcar Award
  • The Bishop Eugeniusz W. Magyar Awards
  • The Edward and Frances Bialoglowicz Award

The Deadline to apply for any of these Scholarships is April 1st. Applications for any of these awards may be received from the Music Scholarship Administrator by writing to:

Mrs. Cathy Bilinski, Administrator
4051 Washington Crescent
Troy, MI 48085

Or by E-mail.

A few questions to test your personal knowledge of music history within the PNCC (answers will be posted February 1st):

The chant style of the PNCC is based upon _________ Chant.
The new hymnal of the PNC will be published in 20__.

Christian Witness, PNCC,

Praying for Christian Unity in Scranton

From the Times-Tribune: Christian leaders gather at prayer service for unity

Leaders of Christian faiths from throughout the region gathered in St. Peter’s Cathedral in Scranton on Tuesday to sing, pray and talk together about strengthening bonds across denominations.

The annual ecumenical prayer service marked the end of the international Week of Prayer for Christian Unity – a period meant to inspire reflection and dedication to the beliefs and mission Christians share.

The Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, bishop of the [R.C.] Diocese of Scranton, said in his homily for the prayer service that such shows of unity should not be easy, hollow or temporary, especially because the “challenges to Christian unity” are “many” and “real.”

“We need to change our prayer, asking God to change us so that we may actively work for unity,” he said. “We are ready enough to pray for unity, but prayer alone can become a comfortable substitute for action.”

In an emotional moment, Bishop Bambera invoked instances when such unity was evident, including at a funeral last week for a Holy Cross High School student killed in a car crash that drew families and religious leaders of many faiths to St. Stanislaus Polish National Catholic Cathedral, where the student was a member.

Tuesday’s prayer service included leaders of many faiths gathered in pews at the front of the cathedral and in chairs lining the altar.

Music, including an opening song with the refrain “all are welcome in this place,” was provided by students from the LaSalle Academy liturgical choir, and a collection was donated to the St. Francis of Assisi Kitchen and the homeless shelter at Bethel A.M.E. Church.

Prayers, readings and a litany of petitions for unity were presented by leaders of Episcopal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Polish National Catholic, Methodist and Roman Catholic churches in the region, as well as the Rev. Dave Twiss of the Green Ridge Assembly of God and Maj. Bea Connell of the Salvation Army.

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