It is easy for us to point our fingers at the Buffalo Diocese…it is easy for us to blame the neighborhood…it is easy to blame a lot of things except ourselves.

The bottom line is that we let this happen time and time again.

Maybe I am off base with what I about to say, but this is where I am at tonight.

The Polish American community shoulders a lot of the blame for letting a large part of our physical history here in B-F simply fade away.

Saint Adalbert Basilica is in now danger of joining the long list of places that WNY’s Polish American community has let disappear.

For as much as we cherish our Polish ancestry, an equal part of a lot of our pasts are intertwined with our Polish American past here in Broadway-Fillmore. The Polish immigrant culture in our collective history who built this neighborhood…built places like Saint Adalbert’s should be honored differently. We should be ashamed at what we have allowed to happen.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of people who recognize the importance of our history here in B-F. People who work hard and diligently to preserve what is left, but these people are clearly not enough.

Father Anzelm Chalupka former Pastor of Corpus Christi Church used to say something like this around the Easter and Christmas seasons when the church was pretty close to being full…it is nice to have you around the holidays, but we need you all year round.

We do need you…we need you because if you don’t celebrate what is uniquely ours here in B-F, it will continue to fade away.


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6 thoughts on “Saint Adalbert thoughts…

  1. Chris you make some really good points especially getting down to those who have abandoned the neighborhood except for the holidays. BF is not my neighborhood, but truthfully I’m getting tired of hearing posts of those who moved away only talking abt what a mess it is. If you carry one good memory of where you grew up, go back and do something positive for the area, it has so much potential if you can just look beyond the rust its gathered because so many left.
    If you have an inkling of city left in you, and your old parish is still open – your one of the very lucky ones ! So join it again, there is no rule you can only belong to one church, and help support it more than the occasional trip down memory lane.

    But all the parishioners in the city that ever had to deal with the Diocese of Bflo. in the closing of their parish know its like getting sucker punched constantly.
    In closing a church, they will fight you till the end. You can have the church filled, money in its accounts, priests arranged to be brought in from another country to manage the so-called shortage, no repairs needed to its buildings, and the harder the parishioners work to solve the problems the Diocesan Office of Propaganda spurts out to the media, the diocese’s heartless machine digs in and tries faster to close you. Its a test of faith in a situation that comes down to a good vs. evil fight. There is no solution in place by this cold-hearted diocese for those souls abandoned by a closing, they don’t care of your memories, the effect a church has on its neighborhood surroundings, your culture or heritage, who’s back-breaking money paid to build your church, the faithful who have no transportation to another parish, or if you ever attend Mass again. Aren’t these part of the reasons the diocese allowed for the building the church in the first place ? These churches belong to the people not those who took title on them.

    I have the highest respect for the parishioners of St. Adalberts for fighting for their beloved parish this long, don’t give-up you have too much to lose. And so does the diocese, if they would just use some common Catholic faithful sense remembering their in the business of saving souls and not to worship beancounters, God will take care of the rest…

  2. I agree totally. I moved to Cheektowaga 15 years ago, but I never abandoned St. Stanislaus Church. To this very day I and my family are active, support the church financially, attend and work at all our social events, dinners and cultural events. St. Stans has been my life. I attended school there, received the sacraments, etc. I still remember Msgr. John Gabalski telling me that he thanks God for people like me and my family who even though moved out of the neighborhood still continue to come back and attend mass at this church. And not just attend mass, but totally help out in every area that I mentioned above. We moved but did not abandon. Many people left and joined a church near them in Cheektowaga, or West Seneca or where ever. Our Polish people need to attend mass at our churches, and support them any way they can. It seems that many people only come for special concerts or events that are usually free and really do not support the church. Many come on tours but again these tours do not help financially. We need people to fill the pews and keep the church viable, or St. Stanislaus or St. John Kanty’s will end up closing like Transfiguration, St. Joachims or Queen of the Holy Rosary or being use for some little events like St. Adalbert’s will now be. If this continue with no support, the other churches will close within the next feww years, just like the Broadway Market will close within the next few years without proper leadership and support. Easter support is not enough. Wake up Polonia or Polonia will be a ghost town.

  3. I am in total agreement with what you write. Our people talk about our history, our culture, our pride, and our strength as this neighborhood with all our ethnic treasures dies.

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