Itt-Ott, 1979 (12. évfolyam, 1-5. szám)
1979 / 1. szám
Seated next to his wife in the living room of their rectory home in suburban Bethesda, Mo., he omitted reference to another major difference between the Roman Catholic Church and the PNCC — the married priesthood. ★ ★ ★ THE PNCC has members in five dioceses and is closer in practice to the Episcopal Church than the Roman Catholic. Most members are second or third generation Polish-Americans, and English is the dominant language. “I celebrate in Polish every other Sunday, but only about 10 people in my congregation speak conversational Polish,” Bishop Gnat acknowledged. When young people of the church live in an area where there is no Polish church, pastors advise them to attend the nearest Episcopal church, he said. In Washington, where Bishop Gnat has been pastor for 20 years, tee congregation gathers to worship in Bethlehem Chapel of the Washington Cathedral, an Episcopal Church. He said his congregation owns the rectory and has the money, but is in no hurry to build a church. ★ ★ ★ POLISH CONGREGATIONS grew in the Pennsylvania coalfields, upstate New York, New England, and Chicago, where tee immigrants gathered. But they saw their Protestant church neighbors owning property. They found the Roman Catholic hierarchy dominated by non-Polish-speaking, and sometimes unsympathetic German and Irish priests and bishops, and were told they could not teach the Polish language in their parish schools. They became angry. They rankled un. der the Roman Catholic Church requirement that the churches and schools they worked and sacrificed to build belonged to the church. In 1897, a delegation of Polish coal miners and factory workers who belonged — and contributed — to the imposing Sacred Heart Church in Scranton was refused lay representation in parish affairs. Some of them tried to block the church entrance. The bishop called the police, and 52 persons were arrested. ’ The Polish worshipers withdrew, organized their own church, and called a Polish-born priest, the Rev. Francis Hodur. He was elected bishop at the PNCC first synod in 1904, which also directed that the Latin liturgy be translated into Polish. In 1898 then Father Hodur went to Rome to plead his people's cause. But he was rebuffed and ultimately excommunicated. MÁSOKTÓL IS TANULHATUNK Hodur Ferenc és scrantoni követői biztos sohasem gondolták volna, hogy 80 éven belül őket is számonkéri az angolszász olvasztótégely. Bár nekik sikerült elkerülni az ír-katolikus hierarchia beolvasztó törekvéseit a századfordulókor, ez csak ideiglenes győzelem volt. Mostmár csupán külön szervezetet képeznek ... és szertartásaik zöme angolul vezeti őket mélyebben az angolszász' episcopal egyházközösségek konglomerátumába. Tanulságként1 vonjuk le magunknak azt a következtetést, hogy "szervezetek" ha önállóak is, nem lehetnek életképes őrei a népközösségnek^ amig nincs olyan hitalapjuk és intézményi keretük, amely előtérbe helyezi a népi nyelvhasználatot és nyelvoktatást a mindennapi életben és küzd a kultúrális utánpótlás biztosításáért ! Ezt az alapelvet minden generációba kell tudatosan beleoltanunk—máskülönben 80 évmülvamás fogja learatni azt a népi magot, amit mi vetünk ma! — l.a. 7
