Polish National Catholic Church.html

The Polish National Catholic Church (PNCC) is a Christian church founded and based in the United States by Polish-Americans who were Roman Catholic. The PNCC is in ¹dialogue with Rome to seek full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, and differs with it theologically in several important respects. The Polish National Catholic Church welcomes people of all ethnic, racial and social backgrounds.

As of November 2006, the PNCC has over 126 parishes and growing in the United States and Canada, with membership of 60,000+, according to its report to the National Council of Churches.[1]

1 Beliefs
2 History
3 Relations with other denominations
4 External links
5 References

Beliefs

Central Act of Worship² The Holy Mass or Divine Liturgy is the central act of worship in all churches of the Catholic Community, including the PNCC or National Catholic Church. The Mass is the Sacrifice of the New Testament and is celebrated completely in the language of the people.

Holy Communion Holy Communion is given under two forms, Bread and Wine, which are the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. The principal method used is Intinction, which simply means that the Sacred Host is dipped into the Consecrated Wine and administered to the faithful at the altar. Only Priests and Deacons administer the Eucharist and it is always placed on the tongue, not in the hand which can be done at the Roman Catholic Churchs if you do not put your hands in the position.

The Church's Teaching for Confession A humble confession of our faults to Almighty God, followed by the assignment of penance and absolution given by the priest, is the way the congregation obtains forgiveness of its sins. The sacrament may be administered in one of two ways: public or private. Private confession is required for all members under the age of sixteen. Public confession is a part of every Mass. In this form, the faithful confess their sins directly and privately to God. The entire congregation then recites the Prayer of Confession together.

PNCC on Procreation' The utilization of birth control is a matter of personal judgment for husband and wife. It is not the responsibility of the church to tell its communicants how many children they must or must not have. Marriage serves other major purposes besides the procreation of children.

PNCC on Prolife Abortion is morally wrong, for it is the ending of a life that has already begun. The church does not sanction it.

Marriage and Divorce' There are no discriminatory regulations against those who have suffered from a divorce; divorced people may participate in Mass and receive Holy Communion. The Church has an obligation to lend its support and ministry to those who have divorced, as it would to casualties of other social ills. Each Diocese has a matrimonial Commission that studies each request for marriage by persons who have been divorced. This commission presents its finding to the Diocesan Bishop with its recommendation. The Bishop makes the final decision.

Priesthood and Marriage' Because it is the perfectly natural thing for a man to do, the church sees no moral reason in the world to forbid a man to receive the Holy Sacrament of Matrimony simply because he happens to be a priest. Tradition tells us that all but one of the twelve apostles were married. Popes, bishops and priests of the early church were all married men. Many believe that a married priest is more likely to understand the problems of marriage and child rearing because he has gone through them.

PNCC Goverance' The PNCC is governed in accordance with its Constitution. In matters of faith, morals and discipline, bishops and priests possess the authority to explain and teach the doctrinal position of Christ's Church. The legislative authority of the Church is vested in the General Synod, the Special Synod, the Diocesan Synod and the Parish Meeting. In financial and administrative matters, the Parishioners possess administrative authority. Representatives elected at the Annual Parish Meeting, and confirmed by the Diocesan Bishop, exercise their constitutional authority in cooperation with the priest.

The chief legislative body is the General Synod; each parish is entitled to send one delegate for each 50 active members.

History

During the late 19th century many new Polish immigrants to the U.S. became dismayed with the Catholic Church hierarchy in the U.S. The American Church had no Polish bishops and few Polish priests, and would not allow the Polish language to be taught in parish schools. Even though the mainly Irish and German bishops helped establish hundreds of parishes for Poles, it was often the case that parish priests were unable to speak the language of the people. There were also disputes over who owned church property, particularly in Buffalo and Scranton, with the parishioners demanding greater control. Many Polish-Americans came to believe that these conditions were a manifestation of "political and social exploitation of the Polish people."(Mead 1995, pp. 220-222)

A leader of this struggle was Fr. Franciszek Hodur (1866-1953), a Polish immigrant to the United States and a Roman Catholic priest. Born near Krakow, he emigrated to the U.S. in 1893 and was ordained that year; in 1897, he became pastor of St. Stanislaus Cathedral in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Continued discontent led to an open rupture with the Catholic Church in 1897, when an independent Polish body was formed, headquartered in Scranton, with approximately 20,000 members initially. Hodur was consecrated a bishop in 1907 in Utrecht, Holland, by three Old Catholic bishops. He is considered by the PNCC to be its founder and first bishop. [2]. There was another schism which resulted in the formation of the small Lithuanian National Catholic Church in 1914; it later merged with the PNCC

Following the PNCC's first synod in 1904, the vernacular (first Polish, then English) gradually replaced Latin as the language of the liturgy. All orders of its clergy (including bishops) have been allowed to marry since 1921. However, if a person is unmarried at the time of ordination, he must remain so for a period of 2 years afterwards.

The PNCC was a member of the Old Catholic Union of Utrecht from 1907-2003, and for much of that period was the only member church of the Union based outside Europe (although it was not so when the Philippine Independent Church, also known as the Aglipayan Church, briefly joined the Union of Utrecht).

Missionary work was begun in Poland in 1919, and at the beginning of World War II there were more than 50 parishes in that country, along with a theological seminary in Krakow. During post-war Communist rule of Poland the church there suffered severe persecution, but it survived and is now an autocephalous body in communion with the PNCC.(Mead 1995, p. 222)

Relations with other denominations

The PNCC is a longstanding member of the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches.

From 1907 until 2003 the PNCC was a member of the Old Catholic Union of Utrecht, and for much of that time was the only member church of the Union based outside Europe. However, in the 1970s this relationship grew strained, as there was a gradual shift towards liberalism in the rest of Utrecht Union churches, as opposed to a trend towards conservatism in the PNCC.[3] The PNCC in the United States and Canada entered into a state of "impaired communion" with the Utrecht Union in 1997, since the PNCC did not accept the validity of ordaining women to the priesthood, which most other Utrecht Union churches had been doing for the past several years. The PNCC continued to refuse full communion with those churches that ordained women; thus, in 2003 the International Old Catholic Bishops' Conference expelled the PNCC from the Utrecht Union, determining that "full communion, as determined in the statute of the IBC, could not be restored and that therefore, as a consequence, the separation of our Churches follows." (The following year the Old Catholic Church in Slovakia seceded from the Union over similar issues.) However, in 2004 the cathedral of the PNCC's Canadian diocese (St. John's Cathedral, Toronto) was reconciled with the Union and is once again in full communion with the Anglican Diocese of Toronto.

For some years the PNCC had inter-communion with the Episcopal Church in the United States, but in 1978 the PNCC terminated this relationship in response to the latter's decision to ordain women to the priesthood.

Although the PNCC has entered into tentative negotiations with Orthodox Churches in North America, no union has resulted due to the PNCC's substantial adherence to the Roman Catholic view of the sacraments and other issues.

Dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church led in 1996 to an arrangement of "limited inter-communion" between the two churches.[4] Subsequent dialogue has been affected by the PNCC reception of some former Roman Catholic clergy, and this was acknowledged in a 2006 joint statement between the two groups. Other obstacles to full communion cited in the 2006 statement include different views of the role of the Pope, and the level of involvement of the laity in church governance.[5]

A group of Catholics in Norway who split from the Lutheran state Church of Norway, who go by the name Nordic Catholic Church, are under the auspices of the Polish National Catholic Church, and according to some articles will have a bishop consecrated by the PNCC soon.

External links

Diocesan/Cathedral Links:

Online and Outreach Ministries:

References

Note 1: Encyclopedia of American Religions, J. Gordon Melton, editor. 6th Ed., 1999. pp 93-94.
Mead, Frank S. (1995), "Polish National Catholic Church of America", Handbook of Denominations in the United States (10th Edition), Abingdon Press, ISBN 0-687-01478-6 .

[7] http://www.hmrcncc.org/default.asp?nc=2314&id=46 ]