Live from Winona

I'm up here in Winona this week, spending the remnants of my summer "vacation" in my ancestral stomping grounds. In the morning I go to the Polish Museum (now with awesome Wikipedia page), to soak in the ambiance, look through the collections, and chat with any of my countrymen and countrywomen who happen to pass through.

Here's a delightful little snippet (translated in the English version of Borzyzskowski's The Kashubs, Pomerania and Gdansk, p. 62) culled from a 1911 article in Gryf by the Kaszubian scholar Jan Karnowski (1889-1939).

The Kashubian population is characterized mainly by two attributes: religiousness and justice. Religiousness is a fundamental breathing of the Kashubian soul, not guided by reasoning, but deeply grasped through feelings. It is in customs, tradition, and above all the personality of priest that stand in for the reasoning. The justice of a Kashub is firm, persistent, with no allowances. This may be a reason for that famous suing mania, that relentless stubbornness and persistence in own rights. A Kashub is ready to forgive all faults and grudges. But he shall never forgive an injustice. 

It is enough to hurt those two aspects of a Kashubian soul and the hostility will last forever! Such an effect had the anti-Polish policy of the Prussian government. As said above, more or less until the period of Kulturkampf, the Prussian government enjoyed a significant confidence within the Kashubian population. The cultural struggle, however, opened their eyes.

Confirming, of course, a lot of what I already suspected about my countrymen and countrywomen. But it is interesting to note Karnowski's contention that most Kaszubians were "more or less" comfortable with Prussian rule prior to the Kulturkampf. The fact that my Kaszubian forebears were not driven out from their homeland is important because it suggests (among other things) that when they reached Winona they did not bring any particular feud with the Germans. Perhaps their desire to form their own congregation with their own Polish priest was simply that.

Reverend Joseph F. Cieminski (II)

Old SS. Peter and Paul Church,
Duluth, MN

In 1910, Father Cieminski transferred to Duluth, Minnesota, to serve as pastor to the troubled parish of Saints Peter and Paul. According to the 1917 Acta et Dicta of the Saint Paul Catholic History Society (vol. 2, page 262), Duluth's second Polish Catholic church had become a battleground between the Diocese of Duluth and a group of "independent" parishioners determined to bring it into the Polish National Catholic Church. Already a group of "independents" had seceded from Duluth's first Polish Catholic church, Saint Mary Star of the Sea, resulting in the 1907 foundation of Saint Josephat's Polish National Church. The legal battle over Saints Peter and Paul had been won, but Father Cieminski had to spend the next five years putting the parish back in order.

1915 saw Father Cieminski moving to another trouble spot, the parish of Holy Cross in Minneapolis, founded in 1886 by his mentor and friend, Father Pacholski. Holy Cross had been in turmoil for several years, due to a scandal involving (or not involving) its longtime pastor, Father Henryk Jazdzewski. Sensing an opportunity, a faction of "independents" had already broken away from Holy Cross and founded Sacred Heart Polish National Church. Again, Father Cieminski was called upon to heal a congregation and bring it safely back to the fold.

In 1932, Father Cieminski, now aged 65, replaced the late Father Pacholski as pastor of Saint Stanislaus Kostka in WInona. For the first time in his career as a priest, Father Cieminski had the enviable task of building upon an already rock solid foundation. Nor did he need to worry about following in Father Pacholski's giant footsteps. For one thing, he was Kaszubian born and Winona raised; for another, he had drawn some of the very toughest parish assignments in three separate dioceses and succeeded every time. In 1943, his exemplary efforts were rewarded when Pope Pius XII raised him to the rank of Monsignor. In 1946, his retirement after fifty-one years in the priesthood was celebrated with an outpouring of gratitude of respect from his parishioners, his fellow priests, and the Winona community.

Father Joseph F. Cieminski died in a Saint James, Minnesota retirement facility on November 19, 1959. Over his ninety-two years he had experienced - and taken an integral part in - dramatic changes for both the Roman Catholic Church in Minnesota and the Kaszubian community of the Upper Mississippi Valley. He lies buried in Winona, among other members of the Cieminski family, in Saint Mary's Cemetery.