St. Adalbert Parish — Krakow, the Cathedral of the West Side

Fraternal Aid Society organized 7 August 1905 — first pastor arrived 2 July 1910, first Mass 16 October 1910 — present church built 1923–1926, 2505 West Grace Street — consolidated with St. Casimir effective 1 July 2025

The Krakow settlement organizes: St. Adalbert was the last and largest of South Bend’s four Polish parishes; Swastek names its district Krakow. On 7 August 1905 the St. Adalbert Fraternal Aid Society was officially organized, with 80 members in the parish’s fiftieth-anniversary history, to build a parish named for St. Adalbert, Bishop and Martyr. House-to-house collections of nickels and dimes reached 402.10 dollars, with which two lots on Warren and Huron streets were bought and then sold; on Czyzewski’s advice land on Olive Street between Huron and Grace was purchased in 1907 as the building site. Czyzewski spearheaded a further house-to-house collection when nearly 8,000 dollars was still needed, took a census of the new parish and directed its organization temporarily. The foundation of the combination church and school was laid in the fall of 1909; the parish’s present pastor dates diocesan approval of the new parish to 1909.

First church and school: Bishop Herman Joseph Alerding appointed the first pastor, the Rev. John Kubacki, who arrived on 2 July 1910 to a procession of parishioners with banners. The cornerstone was dedicated on Sunday 4 September 1910 by Bishop Paul Peter Rhode, the first Polish bishop in the United States. The first Mass was celebrated in the open air, between the two walls of the rising church, on 16 October 1910, the date the parish lists as its founding. The first baptism had been performed in the rectory on 4 August 1910. The church-school was dedicated on 4 September 1911, the church on the first floor, eight classrooms on the second and the parish hall on the third; the Felician Sisters from Detroit opened and staffed the school that same September. The building afterward became the parish school and Heritage Center entire. The three-story brick rectory, the largest in the city, was completed in June 1915. The school’s enrollment peaked in 1929–30 at 1,112 students.

Present church — the cost stands two ways: Under the Rev. John W. Osadnik, pastor from 7 February 1920, the parish resolved in 1923 to convert the original building to school use and build a new church. Its cornerstone was laid and dedicated on 29 July 1923 and the work proceeded slowly for lack of funds. The new church, designed by the Chicago firm of Worthmann and Steinbach in the Neo-Gothic Polish Cathedral style, with soaring twin towers, was completed in the spring of 1926 and blessed by Bishop John F. Noll; Today’s Catholic dates Noll’s dedication Mass to 25 April 1926, the feast of St. Adalbert, with 9,000 people, 32 priests, societies from all four Polish churches and city officials in procession. The parish history taken from its seventy-fifth-anniversary book gives the cost as 23,000 dollars; Today’s Catholic’s parish history gives the cost as 230,000 dollars. Both figures stand in the record. The church, nicknamed the Cathedral of the West Side, was described in the parish history as considered the largest and most beautiful in the diocese.

The Mallin murals: The interior decoration came later. In 1941 the pastor, the Rev. Aloysius Jarka, hired John A. Mallin to decorate the church; ten large canvas murals were painted that year at a total cost of 15,000 dollars, on the north and south walls and six in the sanctuary around the high altar, depicting the Immaculate Conception and Polish saints including St. Andrew Bobola, St. Hyacinth, St. Casimir, St. Hedwig and St. John Cantius. The north-wall mural shows Polish immigrants constructing the church and beating their swords into plowshares, factories in the distance, and the people’s pastor pointing to the fallen Christ under his cross; above is the Polish inscription translated in the parish history, “By the sweat of your brow you have received the bread of life.” The National Fund for Sacred Places singles out this Polish Worker Mural as unusual among the ten in depicting no religious subject directly, but serving as a testament and tribute to working-class people.

St. Stephen’s people and a second immigration: For nearly a century St. Adalbert was the center of Polish spiritual, cultural and social life on the west side. When St. Stephen Parish closed in 2003 — the National Trust account gives the building’s structural instability as the diocese’s reason — its Hungarian and Spanish-speaking parishioners were divided between St. Casimir and St. Adalbert, and St. Adalbert was entrusted to the Congregation of Holy Cross; on 1 July 2004 the Rev. Christopher W. Cox, C.S.C., became pastor of both St. Adalbert and St. Casimir. Immigrants from Mexico had begun coming to the west side in the 1990s for factory, construction and farm work, as the Poles had before them. The National Fund for Sacred Places describes the present congregation as about 900 families, 3,000 parishioners, of whom 90 percent are first- or second-generation Spanish-speaking immigrants; Today’s Catholic counted about 1,000 families in 2017, 90 percent Hispanic, with Masses in Spanish and English and Polish hymns still sung. St. Adalbert School, 93 pupils in 2003, rose to 185 by 2010 and about 230 in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade in 2017, the Felician Sisters still part of it.

Restoration and consolidation: The church is undergoing exterior restoration: a National Fund for Sacred Places grant of 250,000 dollars, with 3,112,048 dollars in matching funds raised by the congregation, paid for a new insulated synthetic slate-tile roof and repair of the twin copper steeples, and the National Trust reported brick repair, tuckpointing and steel reinforcement of the east towers in a project of about 3.4 million dollars. By decree signed 7 April 2025, St. Adalbert and St. Casimir were consolidated effective 1 July 2025 into Saints Casimir and Adalbert Parish, both church buildings remaining in use for Masses with no change to the schedules planned; the Rev. Ryan Pietrocarlo, C.S.C., pastor of both parishes for the preceding five years and in service there nine years, continued as pastor of the consolidated parish.

Sources:

1. St. Adalbert parish history, from the parish’s seventy-fifth-anniversary book, as transcribed for the St. Joseph County genealogical pages — founding in 1910 as the last of four Polish parishes, the society of 7 August 1905 and the Krakow name, the 402.10 dollars and the Olive Street purchase of 1907, Kubacki’s arrival 2 July 1910, the cornerstone of 4 September 1910, the open-air first Mass of 16 October 1910, the school dedication of 4 September 1911 under the Felician Sisters, the rectory of June 1915, the cornerstone of 29 July 1923, completion in spring 1926 at the cost there given as 23,000 dollars, the school peak of 1,112 in 1929–30, and the north-wall mural and its inscription.
2. Today’s Catholic, “St. Adalbert: An immigrant church, then and now,” 1 March 2017 — the Cathedral of the West Side name, the society of 1905 with 80 members, the church-school floors, the rectory, the 1926 church at the cost there given as 230,000 dollars with dedication Mass on 25 April 1926, the arrival of St. Stephen’s people in 2003, and the parish and school as they stood in 2017.
3. National Fund for Sacred Places, St. Adalbert Catholic Church participant record — organization in 1910 for Polish-speaking immigrants, the church built 1923–1926 by Worthmann and Steinbach in the Neo-Gothic Polish Cathedral style, the ten Mallin murals of 1941 including the Polish Worker Mural, the present congregation of about 900 families, and the 250,000-dollar grant with matching funds for the roof and steeples.
4. National Trust for Historic Preservation, “Passing the Torch at the Century-Old St. Adalbert Catholic Church,” 2026, interview with the pastor — planning from about 1905, diocesan approval in 1909, building from 1923 to 1926, St. Stephen’s closure in 2003 for structural instability and its congregation’s move, and the exterior restoration of about 3.4 million dollars.
5. St. Adalbert Parish history in encyclopedia form — the pastors’ succession from Kubacki to Pietrocarlo, Mallin’s ten murals in 1941 at 15,000 dollars and their subjects, the 2003 Holy Cross entrustment and Cox’s joint pastorate from 1 July 2004, and school enrollment of 93 in 2003 rising to 185 by 2010.
6. Today’s Catholic, “St. Adalbert, St. Casimir Parishes in South Bend to Consolidate,” 29 April 2025 — St. Adalbert dated to 1910, the decree signed 7 April 2025 effective 1 July 2025, both buildings retained with schedules unchanged, and St. Adalbert School continuing in the consolidated parish.