www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall "Phyletism" in American Byzantine rite Catholic Churches?

I know that our moderator wants to close this thread and I do not want to get off topic, but to clarify the experience of Roman Catholic immigrant groups in the U.S., I would like to refer to a paper I published over 40 years ago on the role of the Roman Catholic Church in the Americanization of the Polish immigrant.

The most important step taken by the American Catholic hierarchy to aid the immigrant and the action which showed that the Church was not anxious to Americanize the immigrant too swiftly was the establishment and legalization of national parishes. According to the Code of Canon Law promulgated in 1918, "No parish may be established for the faithful of diverse languages or nationalities living in the same city or territory without a special Apostolic induit, nor parishes consisting of families or persons without such an induit; if such have already been established, no change may be made without consulting the Apostolic See."

http://www.sjsu.edu/people/jennifer...onzell%20Polish%20RCC%20Assimilation.pdf

These "national parishes" avoided the appointment of bishops for each nationality group and prevented phyletism in the American Roman Catholic Church.

Our parish was formed in about 1884. The founding pastor who served for 52 years made it work because he was able to hear confessions in all the ethnic languages represented--quite some feat when I think about it. At the same time, he had missionary responsibilities that covered much of the county and the next county for about half that time.

The other consideration was that no one group had enough members to support a parish of its own nationality, thus making this arrangement necessary at its inception and to the present day.

Bob