Sweetest Heart, St. Josaphat, St. Joseph

August 29, 2004
Section: Metro

Priest runs three churches
His job is to preserve, revive all 3
The Detroit News
Christopher M. Singer

DETROIT - The Rev. Mark A. Borkowski has found the home he's been looking for - well, actually, three homes.

At age 39, Borkowski runs a trio of historic Catholic churches, all built in the 19th century and all of them cathedral-sized.

He has been a priest for only eight years.

"I really do not think I would have been a priest if my parents had not been divorced," says Borkowski, standing in the main aisle of St. Joseph Catholic Church, just outside Lafayette Park in Detroit. "There was a search for something that's stable. Sometimes, out of something bad comes something good."

So now that he has his homes, all Borkowski has to do, with the help of parishioners, is preserve and revive three churches: Sweetest Heart of Mary on Russell at East Canfield, built in 1893 and still the biggest Catholic church in Metro Detroit; St. Josaphat on East Canfield and Hastings, built in 1900; and St. Joseph, at Jay and Orleans across Gratiot from Eastern Market, built in 1873.

It's a tough job. Sweetest Heart boasted a membership of 3,000 families at the neighborhood's peak between the two world wars. But those immigrants and the German immigrants who built St. Joseph have long since worked Detroit factory jobs, assimilated and moved up and out of the working class and the core city.

The two Polish parishes and the German parish had links in the past, too.

The first German Catholic church in Detroit was St. Mary in 1835 on St. Antoine at Monroe in what is now Greektown.

While the German community was growing and prospering in industry and retail, by the 1840s, Poles were fleeing German-occupied Poland to the United States, where they hoped to preserve Polish language and culture. They settled around the Eastern Market with the Germans and Jews from Poland and Germany and attended St. Joseph until they could establish themselves and build their own churches.

Sweetest Heart was the third Polish Catholic parish in Detroit.

Now, Sweetest Heart, which is registered as a historic building, needs a new roof. If Borkowski can switch to non-original shingles, the estimated cost will be $1 million. He doesn't want to even talk about what the roof might cost if it must be replaced with the original-style slate.

The church cost $124,000 to build.

The other two need, at least, roof repairs, thorough cleanings and some paint work. St. Joseph also needs stained glass window restoration and repair work.

Each parish in Borkowski's "cluster," the Archdiocese of Detroit's word for one priest with three jobs, raises its own funds the old-fashioned way: the collection plate on Sunday.

Beyond that, each parish has its own fund-raising activities. Sweetest Heart holds its annual summer Pierogi Festival, has dinners and has an active alumni group from its long-gone schools. St. Josaphat has a Nextel tower in the yard, which raises $18,000 in rent each year. St. Joseph has an annual picnic. This year, the picnic at the historically German Catholic parish shared fellowship with the other two historically Polish Catholic parishes.

Borkowski is pressing all three to come together or together shut the doors.

"Already, we've come to the point where everybody is going to everybody else's parish," he said. "When it gets down to the nitty-gritty, if one sinks, we all go down.

"Don't you love your church enough to keep it?"

Each parish has an annual budget of around $100,000. Borkowski hesitates to say exactly how much without permission from parishioners. Sweetest Heart has a membership of just under 400 families. St. Joseph has around 300 families. St. Josaphat is down to around 100 families.

Virtually all of those parishioners reside in the suburbs, immigrants who assimilated and left the old neighborhoods.

Asked why, beyond plain sentiment, the churches should be preserved at such huge costs, Borkowski is incredulous. He bends to the questioner to make sure his answer is understood.

"This is a church where Mass is celebrated," Borkowski says. "The celebration of the Mass has always been of prime importance."

St. Joseph was built in 1873. It needs roof repairs and stained glass window restoration, which can prove to be very costly for this cash-strapped parish.

The Rev. Mark Adam Borkowski

* Age: 39

* First assignment: Assistant pastor, St. Margaret of Scotland Parish in St. Clair Shores 1996-99.

* Named temporary administrator of historic Sweetest Heart of Mary Church in 2001. Appointed full-time pastor of Sweetest Heart in 2003.

* Became administrator of historic St. Josaphat Church in 2003. Appointed administrator of historic St. Joseph Church in 2004.

The Rev. Mark A. Borkowski replenishes the devotional candles at St. Joseph Catholic Church near Detroit's Eastern Market. He is in charge of three historic churches.