By Michelle Martin
Staff writer

Cardinal George planned his May 25-June 2 trip to Poland to thank the leaders of dioceses who have sent priests and seminarians to Chicago, and to ask Polish bishops to send more.

Father Thomas Paprocki, who is accompanying the cardinal, said the cardinal will express his appreciation for the pastoral concern the Polish bishops have shown for Polish people in Chicago.

“They would rightfully be considered their parishioners,” said Paprocki, pastor of St. Constance Parish on Chicago’s Northwest Side. “There are many who come here for a few years and return to Poland, and they are concerned about who will minister to them while they are here.”

The cardinal will visit major cities like Warsaw and Tarnow and dioceses that have sent many priests and seminarians to Chicago, including Rzeszow, Przemysl, Krakow, Lublin and Lomze, Paprocki said.

More than 800,000 Poles or people of Polish descent live in the archdiocese, said Father Michael McGovern, who directs programs for extern and international priests. About 50 Polish-born priests serve Polish speaking parishioners.

Of those, six came in response to Cardinal George’s International Priests Initiative, McGovern said. The cardinal started the initiative three years ago by asking Polish and Latin-American bishops to send Polish- and Spanish-speaking priests to help minister to immigrant communities in Chicago for terms of five years.

Another 19 Polish priests are serving here temporarily at their own request, with the permission of their bishops, McGovern said. Six Polish natives have been incardinated in the Archdiocese of Chicago and intend to serve here permanently, and five men born in Poland have been ordained here, he said.

There are also several religious order priests serving in the archdiocese, McGovern said.

At the same time, 10 Polish-born men are investigating the priesthood at Bishop Abramowicz House, a house of formation, and another 10 have gone on from there to studies at St. Joseph College Seminary and Mundelein Seminary.

They are needed all over the archdiocese, as immigration from Poland continues at high levels.

“They don’t all live on Milwaukee and Archer avenues anymore,” McGovern said. “They are in Lemont, and all along the Northwest corridor, all the way up to Wauconda in Lake County.

A Polish Easter Mass at St. Thomas Becket Parish in Mount Prospect drew 1,000 people, he said.

It’s important to have Polish-speaking priests because people prefer to worship and pray in their first languages, McGovern said.

Paprocki said that when the Bishop of Tarnow, Poland, visited St. Constance, the bishop was surprised by the number of parishioners who introduced themselves and said they were from his diocese.

The cardinal was scheduled to attend the ordination of 44 new priests in Tarnow May 26.