PIETROWICZ, REV. JOSEPH F. ( ? -- Oct. 19, 1946)Catholic priest. Nobody will probably ever understand why Father Joseph F. Pietrowicz wanted to serve in the Diocese of Scranton. It was mostly Polish immigrants who circulated in it in search of jobs in the coal mines. Never a priest -- at least in the 1920s when Polish parishes in the hard coal fields of Pennsylvania were beginning to shrink -- and the seminaries still had enough youth studying for the priesthood.
He was born to Anthony Pietrowicz and Frances Baluta in Philadelphia, Connecticut, or wherever it was, and started school at St. Laurentius, the first Polish parochial school in Philadelphia, where his father and an older brother, both named Anthony, worked in Cramp's shipyard on the Delaware River. With the contributions of Polish workers, William Cramp developed one of the most important shipyards in the United States. From 1830 on, he built more than 200 ships, including paddle wheels and ironclad warships, and when he brought his sons into the business the shipyard built steel-hulled ships for American and foreign fleets.
Instead of following in the footsteps of his father and brother, Joseph F. Pietrowicz left Kensington, where his father died before 1920, to study for the priesthood at Holy Ghost College at Cornwell Heights, Pennsylvania, and Holy Ghost Seminary at South Norwalk, Connecticut.
When he was ordained in the Holy Ghost Order, he was engaged in parish work until November 3, 1922, when he was accepted into the Diocese of Scranton. Father Pietrowicz was then 34 years old.
He had no relatives up in the mountains, although families of the same name were hidden in coal patches, and 26 of the parishes in Luzerne County, where he was first assigned, were Polish and obviously were shepherded by Polish priests. One imagines that they were sons of miners -- not sons and brothers of shipyard workers -- and church assignments were important to them.
At the time, Bishop Michael J. Hoban, who came to Scranton in the late 1890s, controlled 227 parishes in the northeastern corner of Pennsylvania with an iron fist. He treated the success of the Polish National Catholic Church with disdain and used the courts whenever he could to block their grip in controversial Polish parishes.
Little is known of Father Pietrowicz's work in the parishes at Kingston, Nanticoke, Morris Run, Dorrance Corners and Plymouth. For the last five and a half years of his life, he was pastor of St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Church in Jessup, Lackawanna County, established as a pastorate in 1924. He was found dead in bed at the rectory.
In addition to his two brothers and a sister, attending the solemn mass of requiem in Jessup by Bishop William J. Hafey were not only the parishioners but also the priests of the surrounding Polish parishes and other prominent priests. The Divine Office was chanted in the church by the Hebdomadarius, Rev. James P. McAndrew, Scranton; chanters, Rev. Louis E. Pilati and Rev. Joseph T. Shaughnessy, both of Dunmore; first lesson, Rev. Henry T. Klonowski, S.T.D., Scranton; second lesson, Rev. Andrew E. Dlugos, Jessup; third lesson, Rev. Francis X. Dominiak, Dickson City.
The other officers included assistant priest, Mgr. William L. Farrell, V.F., Carbondale; deacons of honor, Rev. Ignatius J. Ritter, Throop, and Rev. Rev. Joseph A. Mroziewski, Mayfield; deacon of the mass, Rev. Edward A. Bellas, Olyphant; subdeacon of the mass, Rev. William P. Boyd, S.T.D., Jessup; master of ceremonies, Rev. Robert A. McNulty, Scranton; thurifier, Rev. John J. Kozlowski, Dunmore; acolytes, Rev. John P. Lipski, Forest City, and Rev. Charles A. Zawol, Austin Heights; book bearer, Rev. Anthony A. Suchocki, Dickson City; candle bearer, Rev. Stephen J. Yaneka, Jessup; miter bearer, Rev. Aloysius S. Ziemba, Archbald; cross bearer, Rev. Joseph J. Ferrese, Jessup; and preacher, Rev. Anthony J. Kozlowski, Eynon.
The past hangs heavy over Jessup. Owing to the shortage of priests and a shrinking population, St. Stanislaus became a mission of St. Michael's, Olyphant, in 1974, and later a mission of St. James, Jessup, one of the first Catholic parishes created by Bishop Hoban in Lackawanna County. The population was down to 4,718 persons in 2000. St. Stanislaus is a mission now of St. James, Jessup. Many of the homes still standing in Jessup once belonged to families named Andrejko, Twardowski, Chrusciel, Ostrowski, Pisarski, Basalyga, and Partyka. All of them and the priests like Pietrowicz are part of Jessup's history.
Author: Edward Pinkowski (2011) [email protected]