FALL RIVER – St. Stanislaus Church at 37 Rockland St. commemorated a 125th anniversary with a special Sunday Mass on Nov. 3, harkening back to its roots as a Roman Catholic parish serving Polish believers. This ceremonial day also marked thirty years since the parish was rededicated after surviving a fire in 1991.
Many people ask about the modest church — and its attached school — and “at one point in our heyday we had people coming from as far away as Stoughton,” said Denita Tremblay, former principal of St. Stanislaus School and an active parishioner. . Now, she said, that radius is closer to home, as the furthest parishioners drive in from Warren, Rhode Island.
“Once you get here, you feel both the presence and the community,” Tremblay said.
Earlier that morning, a procession of parishioners and students moved around the pews, decorated in festive crimson and traditional Polish garb, bearing gifts symbolic of Polish tradition – such as bread, wheat and grapes – in recognition of St. Stanislaus, the patron saint of the church. and in memory of the icon, Lady of Czestochowa.
During the Mass, Fall River Bishop Edgar da Cunha spoke about the breadth of faith communities, noting that the church was often the center of life, and that people could be identified simply by asking “which parish? ” in which they were born. He accepted a Polish-made stole with the image of the patron saint after listening to songs sung in Polish by a choir.
“I was actually born in the parish,” said Principal Patricia Coady, who was a teacher and has now worked at the school as an administrator for 28 years. “Bishop really addressed what I remember our parish being like. … Life consisted of school and church. It was so beautifully put together. The sense of tradition that you all had the privilege of experiencing today really spoke to who we are at heart.”
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St. Stanislaus has a ‘vibrant’ multicultural community
Coady said the school and parish have evolved, saying “now it’s a beautiful multitude of different cultures,” and that an influx of Brazilian and Spanish-speaking parishioners has “enriched” the school and the faith community.
At the brunch that followed the procession and special service, Karen Plichtn, a parishioner, agreed with the vibrancy of the church community. “That’s how it was,” he said, commenting on the church’s steadfast values.
Tremblay, whose family generations had a hand in founding the parish, claimed that Poles now make up about 2% of parishioners. She recalled that “the school was always very lively,” and that about twenty years ago fewer and fewer parishioners were Polish, “but everyone embraced Polish culture, even though they came from different cultures, whether Filipino, French or Portuguese . .”
Coady said she continues the tradition of embracing others. St. Stanislaus is uniquely housed in the same building as the school, with a series of doors facing the altar to separate desks from pews.
Coady explained that connecting the church to the school is inherent in the philosophy of interweaving faith education with academic lessons. Classes begin the day with prayer “from kindergarten through eighth grade,” Coady said.
“Younger people are starting to join us, older people, to whom we can pass the torch,” she said. She called the younger generation “a smaller group” of parishioners compared to her generation, but that “is related to culture and society; “everything that used to be very big is now more isolated,” Tremblay said, even church customs in general.
Over the past century, the parish and school have ‘been through a lot’
Tremblay was principal at the time of the fire that endangered the original St. Stanislaus Church, located where the parish lot now stands.
“The school was not affected by fire,” she said, and there was no damage, “but our auditorium became a worship space.”
Renovations were completed in 1994, adding a modest spire and a second story to the school’s exterior. During the three-year period between the fire and the rededication, “we moved to Saint Patrick’s School for a year,” Tremblay said. There were almost 180 students enrolled at the time. “We were on the top floor of the school and the facilities were quite limited.”
On the day the school reopened, “the whole parish showed up,” with rented moving vans, and “people standing on every landing on the stairs and at every doorway.”
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Thomas Wrobel is a former student of St. Stanislaus School, but is now an active member of the parish. Like Coady, he was also born in the church. He said his grandparents were Polish immigrants who moved from New York to Fall River because of the appeal of jobs and the city’s appreciation as a mill town. His parents were parishioners. Now he sits on the church committee and serves as an officer in their religious education program.
About the event and the procession: “It means a lot,” Wrobel said. “We have been through a lot in this parish. We’ve had fires and priests…and we’re a small parish, and we don’t have many members.”
Wrobel was in the church when the fire started. “Something in the ceiling caught fire. It was in April,” Wrobel recalled. ‘I’m not sure we had the air conditioning on. We saw flames popping out of the top and almost hitting the altar. Someone shouted ‘fire’.”
Everyone was safely evacuated, but not before numerous parishioners withdrew to remove vestments and anything of religious value and move them to the parsonage.
The church continues to flourish thanks to its faithful patrons
Donations from parishioners kept the church running and funded the renovation, the high-ceilinged atrium and decorative windows on display that morning for the well-attended anniversary service.
“It brought tears to my eyes,” said another parishioner, Ann Bielawski, as she reminisced about the 1960s and 1970s, when her Polish grandparents and parents gave her their culture.
Wrobel said the strength of the church community’s faith “provides us with a kind of anchor,” and that it is a matter of “trying to pass on what our ancestors gave to us.”
This article originally appeared in The Herald News: Fall River’s Polish St. Stanislaus Church celebrates 125 years
