www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Polish National Catholic Church ? / Organization of E Rite churches

The PNCC has a valid bishops and its teachings are orthodox although they obviously reject Vatican I. They were in communion with the Episcopal Church until 1977. Intercommunion was rescended when the ECUSA started to ordain women. In 2003 they were kicked out of the Utrecht Union because they refused communion with those members who had started to ordain women and sanction homosexual unions. They entered talks with the Catholic Church in 1994. They also have began talks with the Antiochain Western Rite Vicariate.

They are allowed communion in Catholic Churches and they will give Communion to Catholics. Liturgically they use both the Tridentine and Novus Ordo although with the NO they have their own Eucharistic Prayers they formulated. General Absolution is part of the penitential rite as those over 21 are not required to go to individual confession.

In my experinece, much like my own Byzantine Catholic Church, the PNCC has lost most of its children to the Latin Catholic Church because of lack of availability of PNCC Churches outside the Rust Belt, many just went to the local Latin Catholic parish. And after Vatican II and the election of Pope John Paul II a lot of the old complaints could not be upheld.

Savonarola was not a heretic nor has he ever been condemned as such, although some of his writings and sermons were placed on the Index. His execution was related to the "crimes" he committed in stirring up the populace of Florence against the de Medicis and condemning the personal immorallity of Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia).

Fr. Deacon Lance

This Orthodox writer also comments positively on the life and writing of Savonarola.

In Christ,
Andrew

Friar Savonarola, portraying the insincerity of the clergy, once said:

"In these days, prelates and preachers are chained to the earth by the love of earthly things. The care of souls is no longer their concern. They are content with the receipt of revenue. The preachers preach to please princes and to be praised by them. They have done worse. They have not only destroyed the Church of God. They have built up a new Church after their own pattern. Go to Rome and see! In the mansions of the great prelates there is no concern save for poetry and the oratorical art. Go thither and see! Thou shalt find them all with the books of the humanities in their hands and telling one another that they can guide mens� souls by means of Virgil, Horace and Cicero ... The prelates of former days had fewer gold mitres and chalices and what few they possessed were broken up and given to relieve the needs of the poor. But our prelates, for the sake of obtaining chalices, will rob the poor of their sole means of support. Dost thou not know what I would tell thee! What doest thou, O Lord! Arise, and come to deliver thy Church from the hands of devils, from the hands of tyrants, from the hands of iniquitous prelates."


If you ask me, we could use a few MORE of his preaching these days...but I suppose that many bishops wouldn't respond well to that idea.

In His Holy Name,
+Fr. gregory

Bless, Father Gregory,

Yes, I once got "burned" as well for criticizing a bishop or two . . .

Alex

Take our bishops.......Please!

I've never attended a liturgy of the PNCC, though every major city in Poland has one of their churches. I've never met a Polish member & I think in many ways, it's an "American" church, formed by the American experience.

I am told that the PNCC in Poland has female priests, but cannot confirm that.

Stojgniev

Dear Stoyjniev,

In Poland, it is called the "Polish Catholic Church."

Here in Toronto, I understand that an entire PNCC parish came into communion with Rome (somewhere in Mississauga) and they continue to have married priests.

Alex

Yes the Polish Catholic Church was once a missionary diocese of the PNCC but they are independent now and the two don't have anything to do with one another anymore as the PCC has followed the lead of the other Utrecht Union Churhces.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Been lurking since 1997. This is my first post, if memory serves.

I stopped a few years ago at the PNC cathedral in Manchester, New Hampshire and read literature that declared that hell was NOT eternal. No one was available to clarify this for me. Anyone know their interpretation of this?

Bob

Some disgruntled Latin parishes have gone over to the PNCC as well. A few years ago a parish was closed in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese so the parishioners formed a new parish in the PNCC. I would expect the parish in St. Louis thta does want to end their trustee government to do likewise.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Dear Father Deacon Lance,

I understand that disgruntled Latin parishes is what the PNCC is all about from its inception!

Alex

In addition, Holy Communion is administered in the PNCC my means of Intinction. Private confession is only required of those under the age of 16 (adults make a general confession during every Mass)and they accept birth control. I think someone may have already mentioned that they celebrate Mass in the vernacular.

The PNCC was founded in Scranton, Pennsylvania under the leadership of Bishop Franciszek Hodur (Hodur I believe is a Ukrainian surname) in 1897. The principal cause of their leaving the Roman Catholic Church was their belief that congregations should own churches and that parishoners should decide who their priests would be. To this day, many PNCC's have written on their cornerstones "Property Of The Polish People". Despite the name, the PNCC also originally included Lithuanian and Slovak congregations.

Not sure about the size of the PNCC today, but in the Chicago area they've gone from 9 congregations to 5 within the last 50 years. Their parishes also tend to be small in relation to Polish RC Churches.

I stand corrected No doubt, politics had a lot to play in that period. Most history of that period plays like a bad performance, usually to the interest of many prominent families and city-states of the period. Most of what he called out to the Church to do, took centuries before it was properly addressed. I could not tell you much of his writings, for I have to confess I haven't time to read them. I am a historian (in fact I teach it). What the good friar intended to do was have the church shed some of its worldly glory and focus on its heavenly glory instead. Unfortunately that message was not popular with the powers to be, including the pope. But then that pope had switched alliances several times in that period, and in the end lost all.

My major point is, right at the moment the problem with any reunion is their married episcopate, acceptance of Vatican I & II, and conformance to the Canons of the Catholic Church.

Bishop Hudar faced what many in that period of time did as far as Eastern Rite Catholics, prejudice towards the Poles, their language and culture. The only issue that was different with the problems with the Eastern Rite Catholics and how they dealt with their situation (some coming to the Orthodox Church, some seeking redress from Rome) is the what became the PNC was Latin Rite, and thus used the same liturgy as the Irish and Italians. The only difference would have been the language used in the sermon and the language the priest ministered to his flock in. From even their own (PNC) publications, the dispute ultimately came down to parish control and the authority of the hierarch.

Sorry if I sounded a little sour in my earlier post, but was having a bad night.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

The inscription on many PNCC's is
Wlasnosc Ludu Polskiego. Forgot to mention I'm also an admirer of Savonarola.

My husband's cousin is no longer a PNC priest. I believe one of the reasons is the talk over ordination of women. He is teaching at a college in New York.