Father Bonawentura Stadnik, Polish Missionary in Venezuela and the United States of America

Abstract

Jan Stadnik, a Capuchin friar was born on June 24,1904 at Kijany Dolne in Lublin Province. After finishing secondary education in Lublin, he entered the monastic order of Capuchins at Nowe Miasto on the River Pilica adopting the name of Bonawentura. He was ordained priest in Lublin in 1936. In 1937-1938 he was a preceptor in the novitiate of his order, and in the years 1939-1940 a priest at the Church of Capuchin Friars in Lublin where on January 25,1940 together with 23 brothers he was arrested by the Gestapo. First imprisoned at the Lublin Castle, he was then transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and on December 14,1940 to Dachau where as a prisoner No 22,640 he was confined until the liberation in 1945. After the War he cared for the Poles of Rosenheim (Bavaria). In 1952, following the order of Bishop Józef Gawlina he went with a group of Poles to Venezuela. Not only did he care for his flock; ”it also warmed Polish hearts to hear him sing and play the fiddle”. In 1959, according to the wish of his superiors Father Stadnik moved to the United States where he ministered to the needs' of parishioners of Polish origin, mostly in New Jersey. He died on November 19, 1969 during a visit paid to a Polish family of Valencia-, Venezuela as he was preparing their boy for the First Holy Communion. He is buried at the municipal cemetery in Valencia.