Polish Church's Survival an Underdog Tale
By Paul Grondahl
ADAMS, Mass. — You can't keep a strong Polish church down. On this Palm Sunday, a standing-room-only crowd of more than 600, including busloads from out of town, is expected at the 8 a.m. reopening Mass at St. Stanislaus Kostka Church. It is the first time in more than three years that the Eucharist is to be consecrated within the twin-steepled, yellow-brick Gothic landmark known affectionately as St. Stan's. The Mass follows a contentious dispute set off by the church's December 2008 closure that reached to the highest level of the Vatican courts and resulted in an unprecedented victory for the occupying force. For 1,150 consecutive days, church members kept a vigil at St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in defiance of Bishop Timothy McDonnell in Springfield and stood their ground. They are the granddaughters and grandsons of Polish immigrants who came to this Berkshire town in search of opportunity. Their forebears toiled in the early years of this century for $15 a week in textile mills along the Hoosic River and built their church a century ago with their own hands and the dollars they scrimped to save. For the past three years, the occupiers who had been baptized, confirmed and married in this church bundled up in blankets to fend off winter's cold. In summer they wore T-shirts stamped with "solidarnosc" and displayed the backbone of the famous Polish union leader Lech Walesa, founder of the Solidarity movement. A bronze bust in front of the church and a banner hanging from the organ loft reminded them daily of another tough-minded Pole, Karol Jozef Wojtyla, who became Pope John Paul II and was later canonized a saint. In all seasons, the Tomkowiczes, Mickalenkos, Kuzas, Lipinskis and the rest carried the DNA of Polish ancestors who overcame the oppression of Soviets, Germans and centuries of domination in their European homeland. A cadre of 218 St. Stanislaus parishioners, known as vigilers, refused to accept a 2008 diocesan decision to close their church. They kept an around-the-clock vigil by signing up for one- and two-hour slots and by taking turns spending the night in sleeping bags in the sanctuary. The bitterly cold winter months were a test of wills and pushed to the limit arthritic knees and creaky backs of the octogenarian radicals. Diocesan officials sought to downplay the vigil, a tactic that has spread to Mater Dolorosa Church, a predominantly Polish church in Holyoke that was closed last June. St. Stan's is an underdog's tale. On Sunday, working-class parishioners who battled the powerful Diocese of Springfield and overturned its closure decree on appeal to the Vatican will carry palms fashioned into crosses. They will enter the church in a joyous procession as part of the Roman Catholic feast day that marks the triumphant entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem. They will usher in Holy Week, the most important clutch of days on the Christian calendar, which culminates in Christ's crucifixion on Good Friday and resurrection on Easter. Palm Sunday's spiritual symbolism is rich, but the secular backstory to this tenacious bunch of Polish-American septuagenarians and octogenarians who won a hard-fought victory to save their church is every bit as poignant. As the months and years of their around-the-clock vigil inside the church ground on, four of their stalwart members died from complications of old age. They mourned the losses and prayed for the repose of their souls. Yet they refused to surrender their beloved church. When their spirits flagged, they said the Stations of the Cross, stopping beneath delicately carved mahogany bas-reliefs from Bavaria with descriptions of Christ's journey of suffering and death written in Polish in gold letters. For inspiration, they gazed from their favored spots in the hard, straight-backed oak pews across the sanctuary to a wall on the far side of the altar. They focused on a large oil painting of Jesus Christ with his burning heart and a beam of heavenly light, symbolizing divine mercy. The painting bears the Polish words: Jezu Ufam Tobie. "Jesus, I Trust In You." Their victorious vigil became known as "the miracle on Hoosac Street." Nobody doubted their resolve. For their part, they said they never lost faith that their prayers, rosary recitations and special devotions were answered with a divine intervention. "Our faith was very strong," said Norma Tomkowicz, 80, who, along with her 81-year-old husband, Hank, were active vigilers and organizers of the group. "They figured we'd give up," said Francis Hajdas, 75, a vigil organizer. "Well, we had something to prove to the bishop and those people in Springfield. We were ready to stick out our vigil much longer if we had to." Now, both sides are trying to seek reconciliation rather than recrimination. "I won't discount the miracle of prayer," said the Rev. Daniel Boyle, the St. Stanislaus pastor stuck in the middle of the appeal fight. He tried to remain neutral during a peaceful three-year standoff in which church authorities never moved to oust them by force. The priest did not plan to mention the vigil protest in his Palm Sunday sermon and is doing his best to lay to rest the acrimony of the past. "The persistence of their prayer was a powerful force. I give them a lot of credit for the tenacity," said Boyle, who will say a weekly 8 a.m. Mass at St. Stanislaus as part of the Vatican legal ruling, which reopened the church as a chapel-mission to the newly created Parish of Pope John Paul the Great, a consolidation of three ethnic churches within a few blocks of each other in Adams, population 9,000. "We've said repeatedly we bear no ill will over this," said Mark Dupont, a spokesman for the Diocese of Springfield. He said the church reopened because it won its legal appeal on the grounds that it was in solid financial shape, was structurally sound and had an active congregation that was financially self-sustainable. An elementary school adjacent to the church continues to operate. "The bishop is happy it's been resolved," Dupont said. "Although nobody likes to be overturned on a decision, he respects the process. We hope the healing can now begin." In addition to the weekly Mass, the ruling ensures that the church will also be available for baptisms, confirmations, weddings, funerals and other sacramental services. The winning appeal has become a rallying cry for a grass-roots vigil movement of parishioners that is gathering momentum. Earlier this month, the Vatican ordered the bishop of Cleveland to reopen 13 churches that were closed in that diocese over the past three years due to financial constraints. Those churches followed the lead of St. Stanislaus parishioners by appealing to the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy and arguing that they were financially sound and should not be closed. Peter Borre, a Boston activist who is advising two dozen vigil groups in 11 dioceses across the country, called the recent appeal victories "a tectonic shift in Vatican parish policy." None of the parishioners of the 33 churches closed starting in 2008 during consolidations and downsizing in the Diocese of Albany occupied a church or held an around-the-clock vigil, according to spokesman Kenneth Goldfarb. "We believe the way it was handled in our diocese minimized that kind of outcry experienced in other dioceses," Goldfarb said. An unsuccessful appeal was filed to keep the former Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Watervliet open. A key organizer of the St. Stanislaus appeal, Laurie Haas, who grew up in Waterford, oversaw the paperwork in the complex legal matter. The first tremors of a nationwide parishioners' pushback over church closures was felt on Hoosac Street, within the ornately decorated St. Stan's sanctuary. The church was completed in 1905 and is heavily gilded with gold paint, scores of painted statues of saints, several large stained-glass windows and an exquisitely painted ceiling that bear the visages of 43 saints and 66 angels. The vigilers will savor the victory of Sunday's re-opening Mass, albeit in a muted way. "We became as close as a family," said Loretta Rysz-Vinette, 81, whose 15-hour weekly commitment came in three-hour shifts each weekday afternoon. "We never lost hope and eventually our prayers were answered." She drafted a nephew, 66-year-old Joseph Rysz, a burly retired state forester who took the overnight shift and camped out in a sleeping bag for three years. "This was the most meaningful thing I've done," Rysz said. "I came to believe in divine mercy. It all finally made sense to me once I put my faith and trust in Jesus." Their vigil drew visitors from 40 states and three dozen countries who signed a guestbook. They recalled a pair of college students from New Hampshire who were riding cross-country on bikes. They sought shelter in the church during a pounding rain and slept in sleeping bags that night inside until the storm passed. Two months later, a postcard arrived from Vancouver, British Columbia. The cyclists had made it across the country and they wanted to thank the St. Stan's vigilers for their gracious hospitality — and their prayers for a safe journey. "There's such an amazing feeling inside this church when you spend a few hours here, quietly praying," said Dick Kuza, 70, who makes an annual pilgrimage to Poland. "Our parents and grandparents built this church with their sweat and tears and we weren't going to give that up." There were times during their three-week struggle when time seemed to stand still and the vigilers felt touched by divine mercy. Paul DeMastrie, 64, experienced a transcendent moment during one of his overnight shifts with his wife, Jacqueline. They slept soundly in their sleeping bags and DeMastrie was initially disoriented when he woke up as dawn's light filtered through the stained-glass windows. He was on his back, blinked awake and looked up at the celestial ceiling. DeMastrie groggily asked his wife: "Am I in heaven?" For the occupiers of St. Stan's, their victorious vigil was the next best thing.
|
.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.