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Pastors
of
Sweetest Heart of Mary
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Father
Dominic Kolasinski, founding pastor of the Sweetest
Heart of Mary Church. It's difficult to summarize the impact
that this man had not only on this parish but on all of Detroit.
It is written that he is responsible not only for the founding
of Sweetest Heart of Mary, but also for building St.
Albertus, a school for St. Casimir, a church in Toledo (Ohio)
and a church in North Dakota. There have been several books
written about him (including Orton's book
Polish Detroit and the Kolasinski Affair) and the controversies
that followed him wherever he went. One cannot learn the history
of Sweetest Heart of Mary without understanding the politics,
scandals, riots, devotion, and commitment that made the man
and the church. |
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 Father
Kolasinski’s immediate successor was his good friend
Rev. Romuald S. Byzewski, the
founding pastor of the West Side St. Francis d’Assisi
Parish (1890).
Rev. Romuald
Byzewski, was a native of Karwia, district of Nowe Miasto,
West Prussia, in the government jurisdiction of Gdansk. He
was born on Oct. 10, 1842, and given the name John. He received
secondary education in Wejherowo and graduated on Feb. 7,
1861. He was a graduate of The Theological Seminary in Laki,
Poland. He entered the novitiate of the Franciscan Recollect
Province on Feb. 6, 1861, and was ordained at Luttich, Belgium,
on Aug. 5, 1866. After ordination, he became professor of
philosophy and theology in Laki, Poland.
He left
Poland because of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck’s “Kulturkampf”.
He arrived in the united States in 1875 on the SS Mosel. He
took advantage of the general concession of Pope Leo XIII
to become a diocesan priest in the diocese of Winona, Minn.,
in September of 1875. He was pastor of St. Stanislaus Kostka
parish from 1876 to 1890. During his tenure there, he enlarged
the original wood church and planned the building of the convent
for the School Sisters of Notre Dame. This red brick, three-story
building was completed in 1888 and stood between the rectory
and the church. It was razed in 1982.
While
Fr. Byzewski was in Winona, he was instrumental in establishing
the Polish Newspaper, “Wiarus” with Hiernim Derdowski
and was an ardent propagator of the Polish Roman Catholic
Union.
In 1889,
Fr. Byzewski was sent to Detroit, Michigan. He was assigned
to start a new parish. It did not take long for Fr. Byzewski
to choose a Polish builder by the name of Martin Landczakowski
to build the new church. In June of 1890, the cornerstone
was blessed and construction was begun. The first floor was
the school; the second floor served as the church and the
basement was the hall. The church seated 1,700 people. The
cost was about $35,000 for the new brick building. In 1891,
the first Confirmation took place in the new church. In 1892,
a four-classroom school was started with 282 children attending
under the direction of four teaching nuns. St.
Francis d’Assisi was the fifth Polish Parish in Detroit.
In 1898,
nine years after he had been appointed as the first pastor
of the new St. Francis Parish, Fr. Romuald was transferred
to Sweetest Heart of Mary parish.
In 1899,
he petitioned and was granted readmission to the Franciscan
Order as a member of Assumption B.V.M. Commissariat at Pulaski,
Wis.
Fr. Byzewski
was the pastor of St. Stanislaus Parish in Hofa Park, Wisconsin
from 1899-1900. Then he became the first rector of St. Bonaventure
College in Pulaski, Wisconsin. From 1904 to 1905 he was pastor
of Assumption B.V.M Parish in Pulaski, and a renowned popular
missionary.
He died
in St. Vincent hospital in Green Bay, Wis., on Oct. 30, 1905,
at the age of 64, in the 40th year of his ordination. He is
buried in the monastery cemetery in Pulaski, Wis.
***If
you are researching the Byzewski surname or would like more
information about Fr. Romuald, you can contact Sherlyn
Meiers or Marty
Byzewski. They were kind enough to contribute the above
information. They have a great deal more information about
Fr. Romuald as well as his brothers Anton and August. You
can also get more information at http://www1.umn.edu/ihrc/polish.htm
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Father
Byzewski was succeeded by the young Rev. Joseph Folta
who was the first priest-son of the parish. He had served very
briefly as an associate of Father Kolasiñski after his
ordination in March of 1898, and then to Father Byzewski. In
his twenty-year pastorate (1899-1919), Father Folta built a
huge second school, constructed a permanent rectory, beautified
the church, and safeguarded the parish property by building
an ornamental fence about it. Unfortunately negative and untoward
happenings forced his departure from the parish. |
 Rev.
Joseph Casimir Plagens came late in 1919 and during
his tenure until 1935 the parish celebrated its Golden Age.
The parish flourished. There were societies of all kinds. Almost
1,500 pupils filled the two schools. Sweetest Heart was
the center of the spiritual, cultural, recreational, and social
life of the people. Father Plagens embellished the interior
of the church as it stands today. He built a permanent convent
for the Sisters of St. Joseph who staffed the school from 1894
until its closure in the 1960s. In 1923, he became the first
monsignor of Polish ancestry in Detroit. And in 1924, he was
made an auxiliary bishop to Michael James Gallagher, the ordinary
of the Diocese of Detroit. Bishop Plagens was the third such
American of Polish antecedents (after Bishop Paul Peter Rhode
and Bishop Edward Kozlowski) to reach the Episcopal dignity.
Sweetest Heart of Mary Church became a kind of pro-cathedral;
many religious ceremonies involving the entire Detroit Polonia
were conducted within its confines. It became “the”
Polish parish in Detroit. Incidentally, Bishop Plagens was installed
as Bishop of Marquette on January 29, 1936, and was appointed
Bishop of Grand Rapids on December 16, 1940, where he died on
March 31, 1943. |
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The
1920s was the time when the parish began its decline. This was
caused by sociological and commercial changes within the parish
limits and eventually by the building of the Ford and Chrysler
Freeways. With this phenomenon, people began to move out of
the neighborhood to greener pastures near and beyond the limits
of Detroit. This was very much the condition of things during
the tenure of the next three pastors.
Monsignor Michael Grupa became the pastor of ‘‘Heart’s”
in 1936. He was once rector of the Polish Seminary at Orchard
Lake and continued the tradition of pastors who were great orators.
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1949, Rev. Adam Koprowski became the pastor and
remained until his tragic accidental death in 1959. |
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Father
Koprowski's successor was Rev. Boguslaus Poznañski,
an ex-Navy chaplain, under whose direction the parish voted,
by a slight majority (to the displeasure of some parishioners),
to revert the ownership of the parish properties to the Archbishop
of Detroit and to dissolve the lay Board of Trustees. Then,
too, because of the continued neighborhood deterioration and
because the exodus from the parish reached massive proportions
in the 1960s, the high school, and eventually the elementary
school, had to be closed. The ‘‘Heart’s’’
church lay in a sad state of disrepair on both its exterior
and interior. |
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Father Poznanski’s death in June of 1976, the appointment
of Rev. Bohdan Kosicki as the pastor signaled
the renaissance of the parish. He was officially installed as
pastor on October 10, 1976. Old parishioners and their children
and their grandchildren reestablished their ties with the old
venerable parish. The great and magnificent church was being
restored as funds became available. |
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On
Father Kosicki’s transfer to St. Ladislaus Parish in Hamtramck,
Rev. Alphons Gorecki arrived as the new pastor
of “Heart’s” on June 1, 1981. He continued
the restoration of the church with great enthusiasm. Under his
aegis the parishioners have generously cooperated and have had
the church renovated, the altars and statues and Stations of
the Cross refurbished, the murals restored, etc. Much of the
church was returned to its former sparkling and awesome beauty. |
 Fr.
Mark Borkowski was born on First Friday, September
4th, 1964 in the city of Kalamazoo, MI. He is the oldest son
of Mr. A. Ronald Borkowski and Mrs. M. Joan Herbst. His two
younger brothers are Steven Ronald and Matthew Shawn Borkowski.
He was baptized on October 18th, 1964 in St. John the Evangelist
Catholic Church in Jackson, MI. He also received his first
Holy Communion and Confirmation there in the years 1972 and
1973 Respectively. Father spent the first sixteen years of
this life on a grain farm in the small village of Munith in
south-central MI. He attended elementary school in Munith
and high school in Stockbridge MI. Father graduated from Lumen
Christi Catholic High School in 1982. In 1988 he entered the
Norbertine Abbey of St. Michael in Orange, CA and spent two
years there in the postulancy and novitiate. In 1990 he entered
Saints Cyril & Methodius Seminary at Orchard Lake MI.
He was ordained a deacon by Bishop Kevin Britt on December
8th, 1995. Father graduated from the seminary in 1996 and
was ordained a priest by his eminence Adam Cardinal Maida
that same year on May 25th. He celebrated his First Solemn
Mass on May 26th, 1996 at St. Ladislaus Church in Hamtramck.
Father Borkowski was assigned as assistant pastor to St. Margaret
of Scotland parish in St. Clair Shores from 1996-1999. In
1999 he was assigned as assistant pastor at St. Frances Cabrini
parish in Allen Park. In late September of 2001 he was named
temporary administrator of Sweetest Heart of Mary Church
in addition to his duties at St. Frances. Fr. Mark Borkowski
is of Polish descent and has visited that country four times
where he has many cousins and distant family members. Father
Mark was installed as pastor of Sweetest Heart of Mary
Church on July 20, 2002. In addition, he was also named
as administrator of St. Josaphat Parish in July of
2003 and most recently (2004) he was named administrator of
St. Joseph Parish. |
Not
a pastor, but a friend...
Father Francis Zielinski
Born Feb 7, 1936, Fr Zielinski attended Sacred Heart Seminary
High School, St. Mary’s College in Orchard Lake, and
St. John’s Provincial Seminary, Plymouth Twp.
He was ordained June 2, 1962, and celebrated his first Mass
at Sweetest
Heart of Mary Church, Detroit.
Fr Zielinski’s first assignment was as an assistant pastor
at St. Florian
Hamtramck (1962—67), and he also served as assistant
pastor at Ascension Parish, Warren (1967—69), and Our
Lady of Good Counsel, Plymouth (1971— 72).
In March, 1972, Fr Zielinski was appointed pastor of St. Mary
of the
Snows Parish, Milford, where he served until being named pastor
of St.
Timothy Parish, Trenton, in March, 1979.
He was appointed in July, 1984, to work toward the formation
of a new
parish in Macomb County, which became St. Paul of Tarsus Parish,
Clin-
ton Twp. Fr Zielinski then served as the parish’s first
pastor from July,
1989 until February, 1990.
He was pastor of St. Daniel Parish, Clarkston, during most
of 1990.
Fr Zielinski served briefly during 1991 as temporary parochial
adminis-
trator of St. Colman Parish, Farmington Hills, and as pastor
of St. Margaret of Scotland Parish, St. Clair Shores, for
about half of the year.
In July, 1992, Fr Zielinski was appointed pastor of St. Philip
Neri Parish, Columbus, and administrator of Holy Rosary Mission,
Smith’s Creek.
His parents, Frank and Mary Zielinski, were parishioners for
many years. The family home was on Hancock between Dubois
and St. Aubin. The family consisted of Father Tom Zielinski,
Mary Zielinski who are now deceased. Irene Theisen, a parishioner,
Dorothy Pitts, who lives in ord and Fr Frank Zielinski now
retired from priesthood are still living. Mr and Mrs. Zielinski
must have been wonderful parents to have nurtured two sons
to the priesthood.
June 24, 2001 two cousins, Skylar Raven Mistura and Samantha
Marie Trentacoste will be baptized at Sweetest Heart of Mary.
These two babies represent the 6th generation of their family
to be associated with Sweetest Heart of Mary. Their great—
great — great —grand-parents Anthony & Elizabeth
Ratke were among the initial families to join Father Dominik
H. Kolasinski in the building of Sweetest Heart of Mary in
1890.
The second generation, Mary Ratke was baptized in a house
next to the
church while it was under construction in 1889. Mary Ratke
and William Kraft were married here at Hearts in 1914. The
third generation, Ann Kraft and Walter Mistura were baptized,
attended school and were married at Hearts in 1988.
The fourth generation, David, Daniel, Arnold, Arthur and Christine
Mistura (Hubbard) were all baptized and graduated from Hearts
in 1954, 1955, 1959, 1961 & 1963? respectively Members
of the fifth generation, Linda Mistura (Galka), Karen Mistura
(Ring), and Lori Mistura (Bise) were all
baptized at Hearts. Linda Mistura and Mike Galka, were married
at Hearts on September 6, 1980.
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