Father Jarosław Nowak was born and raised in Kluczbork. In 1990, he graduated from theological college in Kazimierz Biskupi and began his ministerial service. One year later he left on a mission to Norway.
When he left the Roman Catholic church, father Jarosław Nowak commenced his service in the Polish-Catholic church in Strzyżowice, in the krakowsko-częstochowska diocese. At the same year, he completed post-graduate studies, faculty of administration, at Silesia University. His major was administration and management. During his pastoral service in Strzyżowice he also worked at the HR department of a hospital in Katowice.
In 1999, he was delegated to work in the US. He spent the first three months of his emigration in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Since December 2002 he has been living in Hamtramck. He has a wife and two sons.
Interview by Anna Muller on 14th August 2015 in Hamtramck..
Here, in 1970s, English was introduced because the Polish National Church, that’s the official name of the church in the US, it no longer is Polish. It’s the same when people come and say: I would go to this church but I’m not a Pole. – Which church? – The Roman Catholic. And are you a Roman? – No. The same happens here. The historical name was left because Poles were the largest community who created the church and the church operated using Polish until 1970s. The pastors, who were here, graduated theological colleges. Those, who had been born here, had to speak Polish if they wanted to be members of the parish because Polish was spoken in the parishes. This is how it works here. The same is now happening in the Roman Catholic Church. If, for instance, Roman Catholic parishes were located in [inaudible] who were Polish Catholic, using Polish language. In time and due to integration, the families and children assimilated and learnt English. The first wave of immigrants didn’t want to teach their children Polish because they really wanted their children to assimilate knowing how they had been treated as immigrants. So they wanted their children to have a better future. They literally wanted to erase the change of names, no Polish lessons. This caused that the St. Stephen’s parish, which was generally a Polish one, became American just before it had to close down. Despite the fact that most people who were the members of the parish were of Polish origin, it lost its Polishness. It was just Polish in last names, sentiments. Many people who attended the church still come when we organize a fundraiser or undertake some foundation projects. We make dinner. Various people come and buy the dinner. We have volunteers who work preparing the dinner. We have people who come from the church, from Roman Catholic churches and say that they wish they had been taught Polish by their parents. They can say 2–3 sentences but they feel Polish, they comprehend Polishness, they have Polish roots and they are proud of their Polish origin. This is the next generation of Poles.
After I left the Roman Catholic Church, the church authorities believed me to be the member of their church for one more year. Despite the fact that I no longer worked at their church, they counted me as a member of their community. After a year I sent a writ that I belong to the national church now so I was excommunicated immediately. This notion has historical context in it. Now it means that somebody is excluded, I mean that somebody is a member of a church or isn’t. In the past, such a person was simply condemned. And in the elderly mindset it is treated like that. If you start speaking of excommunication, of someone that has been excommunicated, then the effect is immediate. I was in touch with friends from the university. Those with open minds are positive people. Those with narrow mindset believe such a person to be a traitor, etc. I think that some of them envy me. Abandoning the Roman Catholic church isn’t easy. Especially, when one is a priest in Poland because it impacts the whole family. My family had a hard time after my excommunication but today, I think, they have no problem with it. Last week my wife visited my parents. Everything is fine. I think that a lot has changed in Poland, that the people… The same was with me, when I worked, being a national pastor, I was employed at a hospital. The fact that I was an ex-Roman Catholic priest was an advantage. My employer perceived me differently, he noticed honesty in me. I don’t know the mechanism behind it, anyway, the studies was one thing. The other was my background, what I had done. People always ask and you cannot lie and tell stories because a lie has no legs, the truth will eventually come out. People, especially connected with medicine, we’ve always been in touch because my wife had worked for many years as a doctor in Katowice. Our friends were also doctors, members of the medical community. They had no problem with the fact that I was an ex-Roman Catholic priest, that I am still working outside the hospital administration, that I’m a pastor on weekends.
Joining the church involves a declaration that you want to become a member of the parish. We get contributions paid by the parishioners. They get their envelopes, they pay their annual contribution for church maintenance and their Sunday contributions. They have a right to vote, to be there. There are such people in the Roman Catholic Church. They go to church, they want to pray, they put some money on the tray, but they don’t want to engage in the life of the parish. We have those as well, maybe 20 people like that come. And we have 30 children, starting from infants to young people like my son, who is 20. This is our main source of income. We organize one dinner in September, with music. We have Polish music here and the second dinner is in October. Those are the dinners we sell. During the latter we organize a lottery and prizes. You can even win 1,000 $, it’s the main prize. The drawing takes place on the same day. This attracts people and allows us to keep the church. Of course, there are those who donate a lot of money for the church. We do everything to keep the church open. This parish once had about 160 or 180 members. It wasn’t a problem back then. In the Roman Church such a small parish would have been closed down.
