The Pastoral Care Conducted by Redemptorists among the Poles in Germany

Abstract

The apostolic activity of Redemptorists was resumed in the Polish territories in 1883 aside to national missions, and soon crossed the old Polish frontiers. Pastoral care for the Poles abroad started as early as 1891 from the „most abandoned” Polish workers in Germany, mainly in Westfalia and Nadrenia. Later on there were expeditions further into czarist Russia, as far as Siberia and the Caucuses, reaching the then groups of Poles. The first missionary expedition to the Poles in Germany was organised by Fr Bernard Łubieński who lived in Galicia and took up apostolic tasks in the Prussian partition. He soon realised where the Poles wandered „for bread”. In 1891 Fr Łubieński together with Fr Antoni Jedkie conducted a mission for 1000 Polish workers in Langendreer. After that Fr Bernard preached his famous sermon for Poles in the Redemptorist church in Bochum, the church called „Polish church”. Later on there were further missions and expeditions made by Redemptorists in 1899, 1900, 1901, 1910, and 1931. They travelled from one place to another. The German authorities, including some church authorities, were not very happy to see Polish priests who contributed to support the Polish spirit and thereby made the Germanisation of Poles difficult. In the context of the policy of Germanization, German Redemptorists would send from 1899 onwards their subordinates to the monasteries in Galicia and then in Poland to learn the Polish language. Among them we find Henryk Mann and Paweł Porbadnik. They were devoted to Poles with all their hearts. Polish Redemprists restarted pastoral care among Poles in Germany in 1945. These were prisoners of concentration camps: Jan Szymaszek, Wacław Pilarczyk, and Tadeusz Tybor. They were found by Jan Schultz, the chaplain of the American army, amongst several hundred priests from Dachau, and on 8^the June they were introduced to Augsburg Bishop Kumpfmuller. The Bishop established pastoral care for Poles in Augsburg, and Fr. Szymaszek was appointed a parish priest. They worked together for a short period. Fr. Szymaszek still worked in Augsburg, Fr. Tybor went to Dillingen and there, on 2^nd June 1946, he died in a car accident. Pilarczyk wandered from a centre to a centre, working were he was sent to work. In 1950 Fr. Szymaszek went to Denmark, and Fr. Pilarczyk to Argentina. The third period, the years from 1972 onwards, when the Redemptorists were employed to work in the Polish Catholic Missions in Germany, first in Landshut (1972), then in Munich (1978), and in Stuttgart (1981). Initially, they worked as priests, and then from 1978 onwards as parish priests and vicars. These missions work for several churches (Munich) or distant centres (up to 100 km): Landshut and Stuttgart. There special action in Germany was the „peregrination” of a cope of the icon of Our Lady of Częstochowa in the Polish centres of pastoral care, preceded by missions or recollections (1979-1981).