Holy Name of Jesus Church, South Deerfield, Massachusetts

The Holy Name of Jesus Church in South Deerfield, Massachusetts, was formed in 1929 by former members of St. Stanislaus Roman Catholic Church. The members of Holy Name chose to affiliate their congregation with the Polish National Catholic Church. Initially, they met in the Redmans Hall, a fraternal hall on the main street of the village of South Deerfield, but in 1930 they built Holy Name. Like other churches in the Polish National denomination, Holy Name conducted services in Polish and offered Polish traditions for the major holidays. The Polish National Catholic Church was founded in 1904 as nationwide resentment grew among many Polish Catholics. By the 19th century, the Catholic Church in the U.S. was dominated by Irish and German Catholics. As Polish immigrants began arriving in large numbers in the last decades of the 19th century, they felt little affiliation with these cultures and were often shut out of church governance. These resentments boiled over in Scranton, Pennsylvania, when a group of Polish miners and factory workers request lay participation in the affairs of a church they had heavily supported. When that was refused, they broke away and formed their own parish. Other parishes followed, and when the minister of the first parish attempted to gain official recognition from Rome he was refused. The ensuing split was so acrimonious that he and his parish were excommunicated. They then began saying mass in Polish, a move copied by the other breakaway parishes. In 1904 they met to form their own denomination, and the Polish National Catholic Church was formed. Today, although its ritual closely follows the Roman Catholic model (pre-Vatican II), services are in Polish and English, and parishes select their own ministers. The General Synod, a council of all its churches, maintains ultimate authority. The denomination grew, as other dissatisfied Polish congregations and groups chose to form churches away from the main Catholic Church. Today, there are 156 churches, based mainly in the United States, with some in Canada.