Really well done and congratulations.
An interesting and well balanced post from Interstate Catholic in St. Casimir’s PNCC is looking for new members:
There it was in City Newspaper. In the worship section.
An invitation to attend St. Casimir’s National Catholic Church in Irondequoit. Many Polish National Catholic Churches now refer to themselves just as National Catholic Churches, wanting people to know that the church invites all people to their masses and not just Polish people. Just a reminder, the Polish National Catholic Church is not in communion with Rome. But as they say, the dialogue continues.
With Roman Catholic Churches consolidating and closing, The Polish National Catholic Church has found new life and increased attendance where they are located, mostly from former Roman Catholics who are fed up with church governance. The PNCC writes on their website that it is the people of the parish who own the property and make the decisions for the parish…
The writer has a couple of nice photos including one of the old parish in Rochester’s inner city.
Just as an FYI, the Rev. Marek Gnidzinski was recently appointed Administrator of St. Casmir’s. The parish had been staffed by the Rev. Deacon Richard Golaszewski who was temporarily assigned as its administrator.
The former pastor, the Rev. Kenneth Strawhand (who is somewhat known in the Continuum and who is currently serving in an ACC parish in Richmond, VA), is on an indefinite leave of absence/sabbatical from ministry in the PNCC per his LinkedIn page.
And from that time, that is, more or less from the middle of the last century, begins the organization of workers on a larger scale in the name of the rights of man, in the name of the value and worthiness of labor. Everything that workers did in the name of their slogans was good.
And today one may say boldly that the cause of labor is the most important one, and that progress, the development and happiness of the whole nation, of all mankind, depends on its just resolution. Workers today have more privileges than they have ever had.
In this reasonable and just struggle for rights, bread for the family and education for children, for common control of the wealth created by the worker, our holy Church stands before the worker like a pillar of tire, and the hand of Christ blesses him in his work.
From an address by Bishop Francis Hodur at a reception for Maciej Leszczyński held in Scranton’s town hall on November 30, 1919. Mr. Leszczyński was in the United States as a delegate to the International Conference of Workers.
The struggle for the protection of workers rights continues. I urge my readers to look into the issue of wage theft and other abuses that are occurring at an alarming rate. Abuses as grave as virtual slavery and forced child labor still occur. Unfortunately, and I know this from first hand experience, this is not history but is happening down the street today. The pictures of abused workers from the early 1900’s are just as real today.
The cry of the abused worker struggling to feed his family, to obtain health care, to actually get paid for the value of his work echos the words from Deuteronomy 26:5-9:
“And you shall make response before the LORD your God, `A wandering Aramean was my father; and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous.
And the Egyptians treated us harshly, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage.
Then we cried to the LORD the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice, and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression;
and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror, with signs and wonders;
and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.'”
May their cry be heard and may we as a Church respond and lift them up. Bishop Hodur led the effort to lift up our grandfathers and great-grandfathers from hard bondage and this is our heritage and our call. Let us not forget.
…the annual PNCC Track and Field meet in Scranton. The marathon starts at 8am. We will have Holy Mass at the Grotto of Christ the Benign in St. Stanislaus cemetery at 10am. The rest of the events occur after Holy Mass. My son will be competing for the first time. Pray for him.
From the Observer-Reporter: Sacred Heart church installs pastor
Phillip M. Lavery recently was installed as pastor of Sacred Heart of Jesus Polish National Catholic Church in Canonsburg.
Bishop Thaddeus Peplowski of the Buffalo-Pittsburgh Diocese of the Polish National Catholic Church presided at the installation, and auxiliary Bishop John Mack of Holy Trinity PNCC, Washington, assisted.
Lavery was ordained a priest in 1988 after studying at the Vatican for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, and his first full-time assignment began in July 1989, when he was named parish assistant at St. Patrick Roman Catholic Church in Canonsburg.
He served in Canonsburg for several years, and one of the highlights of his service there was the establishment of an annual Italian Mass and Procession on the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Lavery also was actively involved in the Canonsburg-Houston Ministerium.
Lavery and his wife, Heather, joined the Polish National Catholic Church soon after their marriage in 1997, and they were active at Holy Family Church in McKeesport.
Lavery began doing hospice ministry in 2001 with Odyssey Healthcare, and in 2004, he was named director of Bereavement and Spiritual Care Services for Harmony Hospice and Palliative Care.
He has served many years as a replacement priest for parishes in the Southern Deanery of the Buffalo-Pittsburgh Diocese and along with his wife established Father Lavery Ministries, a worldwide Web ministry.
Bishop Hodur strongly advanced the idea of the National Church model (really no different than the Orthodox model – the local bishop with his clergy and people around the Holy Eucharist represents the fullness of the Church). Among the reasons for this advocacy was Bishop Hodur’s knowledge and experience of the Polish Church’s struggles. Real world experience showed that the good of the local Church was often secondary to the political machinations of the Bishop of Rome and the Vatican bureaucracy.
Hillary White (thanks to the Young Fogey for the links) has two articles that explore the Vatican’s betrayal of local Church leaders, particularly Cardinals Mindszenty and Beran. The Wikipedia article on the Vatican’s “Ostpolitik” refers to the phenonena as an invention of Paul VI. In fact it is a policy that has been entrenched in the Vatican for centuries. Poland was betrayed numerous times
Read Church of Traitors and Church of Traitors, Part II. The telling lines from Part II:
Casaroli continues,
…
“We opted for negotiations, because we didn’t know how long those regimes would last, and in the meantime we had a moral obligation to insure that the Church had priests, that the faithful could receive the Eucharist and go to Confession. If we lost the hierarchical institution, we would lose the Church…”
Now, this is interesting, because I have known some priests who were underground in Soviet bloc countries and their stories are illustrative. Had the Vatican supported their efforts, would the Faith have died or flourished? Would the Church have been “lost” as Casaroli said? Hard to say at this distance in time.
But from what I have been told, the Church was flourishing. And one of my informants was a Slovak priest who was ordained secretly in Czechoslovakia, one of the countries that Casaroli described as a “hardline” state in which the Church would have “died out” without his “careful step-by-step diplomacy”.
The difference, perhaps between men like Casaroli in the Vatican and the men actually baptising and marrying and saying Mass in secret in these countries was that the latter knew and accepted the possibility of martyrdom. It seems that Casaroli and his popes rejected that possibility utterly and were more interested in creating comforts, a typical Novusordoist goal.
I wonder, who bore true witness to the faith, who stood on the side of God’s politics? In my book it was the local Church, those who knew the situation on ground, the evils of the communist system, the violence and selfishness of its leaders, and who nevertheless chose to face the consequences of witness to the faith. As Tertullian wrote: The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church.
The Blessed Virgin Mary of Częstochowa Polish National Catholic Church in Latham, New York will be hosting a Liturgy and Worship Workshop given by Father Francis DesMarais, pastor of the Western Orthodox Community of St. Gregory of Rome (Orthodox Catholic Church of France
The workshop will be held at the parish on Tuesday, September 1st at 6:30pm. All are welcome.
My pastor has known Fr. DesMarais for years and the presentation should be thought provoking and enjoyable. Fr. DesMarais prepared an English translation and adaptation in booklet form on the Divine Liturgy of Saint Germanus of Paris along with Prof. William Carragan.
The 5th Annual Dożynki Polish Harvest Festival will be held at Holy Mother of the Rosary Cathedral Parish in Lancaster, New York on Sunday September 13, 2009 from 10am to 8pm. Admission is free.
Holy Mother of the Rosary Cathedral Parish is located at 6298 Broadway in Lancaster, NY (Between Schwartz & Ransom Roads).
The day’s events:
10am – High Holy Mass
11am – Dożynki Ceremony
12 Noon- till sold out – food service including their famous Polish Platter and delicacies like Czernina (Duck’s Blood Soup) and Rosół (Rich Polish-Style Chicken Soup)
1pm – Polish Heritage Dancers of WNY
3:30pm – Cathedral Concert – Bell Choir & Organ
4 to 8 PM – PhoCus (Buffalo’s newest Polka Band)
Homemade Polish Food (American food also available)
Polka Music …. Polish Folk Dancers … Children’s Activities … Polish Deserts … Cultural & Craft Demonstrations … Exhibits & Vendors … Theme Tray Auction … Farmers Market … And So Much More!!
For additional information please contact the Cathedral Parish office at 716-685-5766
…at Roman Catholic Resources. I posted a comment which reflects what I’ve written below. I think the writer is asking (?) whether the PCC believes in “papal infallibility.” My response (extended and revised):
The Polish Catholic Church (Kościół Polskokatolicki) is a member of the Union of Utrecht, but has very little in common with what remains of the Union. A little history:
The Union of Utrecht was formed after Vatican I in response to the “dogmas” of papal infallibility and the immaculate conception. The Union desired to stick with the Church’s common dogmas as established prior to 1074. At the time of its organization it primarily consisted of Churches in the Netherlands and Germany.
The PNCC was organized in the United States. The Rev. Francis Hodur was elected Bishop and was consecrated in 1907 by Archbishop Gerard Gul of Utrecht, Bishop John Van Thiel of Haarlem, and Bishop Peter Spit of Deventer, the Old Catholic Bishops of the Netherlands thus becoming a member of the Union of Utrecht. In approx. 1920 the PNCC sent a mission to the old country and attempted to establish parishes there. There was some success particularly in northern Poland.
Like the Orthodox we all see the Papal office as a man-made office established for the good order of the Church; not a Divinely instituted office ordained with special powers and privileges onto itself.
The Church in Poland was somewhat prosecuted by Roman Catholics as was the PNCC in the United States. During WWII the Polish Church’s bishop, as well as its priests, were arrested and imprisoned by the Nazi Germans. Its bishop, Jozef Padewski was released in a prisoner exchange and returned to the United States until after the war. On his return to Poland he was arrested by the communists, was tortured, and was martyred for the faith. The communist authorities in Poland then forced the Polish Church to break its ties with the PNCC and to independently establish itself (in other words PNCC and PCC were made administratively separate).
To this day the PNCC and the Polish Catholic Church consider themselves sister Churches but remain administratively separate.
While the Polish Catholic Church remains a member of the Union of Utrecht, the PNCC broke its ties with the Union in 2003 over the Union’s liberal innovations (“womanpriests” and gay “marriages”). The PNCC had previously broken its intercommunion with the Episcopal Church over the issue of women’s “ordinations” in 1978. The PNCC was the largest Church in the Union. What remains of the Union, excepting the Church in Poland, is rather small and insignificant. In my opinion it will eventually become a rump organization absorbed into the Anglican or Episcopal Church. Sadly, once a Church with close ties to Orthodoxy, it has become just another “church of what’s-happenin’-now,” another Protestant body with fancy externals.
As noted, the Polish Catholic Church remains a member of the Union of Utrecht even though it rejects women’s “ordination” and gay “marriages.” How long that union lasts remains to be seen.
A side note, there is a group in Poland that calls itself the “Polish National Catholic Church in Poland” (PNKK). Don’t be fooled. It is a group of deposed clergy and vagantes. It has nothing to do with the PNCC or the PCC.
Beautiful magnificent star,
Mary of Czestochowa,
|: To you we appeal,
O Maria, Maria! : |Gratefully we have heard the voice,
Mary calling to us:
|: “Come to me, O my children,
The time has come, oh, the time has come. ” : |When the songbird sings,
Mary is praised,
|: The nightengale’s grateful voice
Sing, oh sing. : |And we who have gathered
Vouchsafe to greet us Mary
|: Purest heart of the Mother of God
Grant us, oh grant us! : |Oh, most precious jewel
Of this world, Mary!
|: Who has you, is with you
Rejoice, oh they rejoice. : |
Translated by Dcn Jim
Gwiazdo śliczna, wspaniała,
Częstochowska Maryja,
Do Ciebie się uciekamy,
O Maryjo, Maryjo!Słyszeliśmy wdzięczny głos,
Jak Maryja woła nas:
“Pójdźcie do mnie, moje dzieci,
Przyszedł czas, ach, przyszedł czas”.Gdy ptaszkowie śpiewają,
Maryję wychwalają,
Słowiczkowie wdzięcznym głosem
Śpiewają, ach, śpiewają.I my też zgromadzeni
Pokłon dajmy Maryi,
Czyste serce Bożej Matce
Darujmy, ach, darujmy!O, przedrogi klejnocie
Maryjo, na tym świecie!
Kto Ciebie ma, ten się z Tobą
Raduje, ach raduje.