From the history of pastoral care for Poles in Denmark in 1927

Abstract

Starting from 1893 Polish emigrants began arriving in Denmark, usually from Little Poland and Cieszyn Silesia. At first the emigration had a seasonal character and was first of all agricultural. For the total number of 25 thousand Catholics in Denmark there were 13 thousand Poles. In 1927 14 foreign priests who spoke Polish performed pastoral service among them. Pastoral service performed by Polish priests who were subordinated to the Primate of Poland met unusual opposition from chauvinistically oriented Missionaries, usually Dutch or German by descent. The Polish envoy to Copenhagen predicted the necessity of presenting this issue to the Holy See.

The presented document – a report written by the Rector of the Polish Catholic Mission in Belgium, Rev. Dr. Tadeusz Kotowski, the person who established the religious and cultural-social care for Polish emigrants both in Belgium and in the Netherlands and Denmark, confirmed that “the problem of religious care in Denmark was very complicated because of the Church policy of the Vicariate Apostolic, supported to some extent by the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, aiming at denationalization of the Polish emigrants.