[Fr. Skulik]

Rev. Bernard Maria Skulik, Ph.D.

....... [St. Hyacinth]

St. Hyacinth Church in LaSalle, IL

SKULIK, REV. DR. BERNARD M. (August 26, 1867 -- May 1, 1924)

Priest and writer. It is impossible to write the full story of the Rev. Dr. Bernard M. Skulik, whom one historian called "the most productive Polish writer in America" and another one considered him "the forgotten propagator of Catholic education." Everything he wrote, including newspapers he started, weren't saved. So far, he has received a little attention from a few Catholic theologians and scholars in his homeland. Up to this point, a fine Silesian scholar, Jerzy Myszor, who wrote about him in Polski Slownik Biograficzny, gave Father Skulik some of the recognition he deserved.

The son of Franciszek, a mine carpenter, and Dorota (nee Bialas) Skulik (Frank and Dorothy in English) first saw the light of day in Szopienice, one of the villages in Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic parish, Myslowice, in Upper Silesia, where at one time 9,585 workers produced one-third of the world's output of zinc. Because he shined in the grammar school at Szopienice, he was very popular with the sons of zinc workers and Father E. Kleemann, his pastor, who wanted to push him ahead as much as possible. The pastor and Father A. Snopka in Zagorze tutored young Skulik in Latin and other subjects.

In 1885, while he was at a higher school in Krakow, Poland, he received a scholarship to Gregorian University in Rome, Italy. Following his graduation from there, he entered San Apolinare Papal Seminary at Rietti, in Perugia province, central Italy, to pursue religious studies. It was there that he and others formed a society to open Catholic reading rooms in Italy and other countries like the Christian Science reading room established at Boston in 1888. On July 15, 1891, Skulik arrived in New York and no reason for it was cited, One wonders whether he tried at the time to open the first Catholic reading room in the United States. Then he returned to Rietti, where he was ordained on December 19, 1891, and completed his doctorate in sacred theology at Rome on March 9, 1893.

After that, he sailed again to the United States and succeeded the first Slovak priest at Passaic (Indian word for peaceful valley), a closely packed industrial city in the northern tip of New Jersey, not far from New York City. Thousands of immigrants, chiefly from southern and eastern Europe, worked in the woolen mills of Passaic. Before they built their own church, popularly referred to as St. Mary's, the Slovak people worshipped in the basement of a German Catholic church. The news of Father Skulik's handling of their religious services spread rapidly from Passaic to other Slovak enclaves in the United States. Among them were mine patches up in the coal-laden mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania.

He also attracted the attention of an Italian priest, Monsignor Francis Satolli, the first representative of the pope in the United States, who came to Washington, D. C., in 1893. Shortly after Father Skulik organized St. Mary's Slovak parish at Shamokin, the papal delegate of Pope Leo XIII named Father Skulik his alter ego and secretary for Slovak affairs. Nobody knows exactly whether Father Skulik acccompanied his superior to any Slovak affair, what issues he dealt with, how many letters he wrote, and how much he contributed to the papal agent's success.

The middle 1890s were full of activities. At first, Father Skulik never figured he would edit and publish weekly newspapers not only in Polish but also in Italian and English. Back in Upper Silesia, he read German newspapers, and in Rome, Italian newspapers. He was so lonely in the shadows of coal breakers that he set up a small print shop in Shamokin and issued a weekly newspaper in Polish. Exactly what it was called -- either Polska i Litwa (Poland and Lithuania) or Przyjaciel (Friend), both of which he started -- isn't listed in newspaper directories. He also published one in English (Saturday Weekly) and one in Italian (Civilta Cattolica). The newspapers died one after the other for lack of support. As it turned out, Father Skulik was the second Polish editor and publisher to fold in Shamokin. Despite these failures, the Slovaks built two small wooden churches eight miles apart -- St. Mary's at Shamokin and St. John the Baptist at Mt. Carmel -- and thanked Father Skulik for their efforts.

Although there is no record of it, Archbishop Patrick Feehey brought Father Skulik from the hard coal fields of Pennsyvania in a vain attempt to organize a parish for Slovaks and Croatians in Chicago. Nevertheless, while he tried to find a foothold among Slovak and Croatian families, Father Skulik stayed three months with Father Adolph Nowicki in the shadows of a steel mill in South Chicago; three months with Father Victor Zaleski, who died May 19, 1896, and six months with Father John J. Radziejewski. Then he answered the call in 1896 of Polish farmers at Brighton, Iowa, to serve their spiritual needs. It was hardly worthwhile. Not even a church existed.

After leaving Iowa, Father Skulik found a job teaching Polish grammar at St. Francis Seminary in Wisconsin and assisting the Rev. William Grutza in pastoral duties during the construction of the monumental St. Josaphat's Basilica in Milwaukee. He dropped these duties on May 15, 1897, to take the editorial reins of a tri-weekly Catholic newsaper, Katolik, founded by an association of Polish priests on January 15, 1897, to combat the growing influence of Michael Kruszka, who came to Milwaukee in 1882 and, six years later, started Kuryer Polski, the first successful Polish daily newspaper in the United States. Owing to a shortage of funds, Father Skulik issued Katolik once a week. Three months later a third Polish newspaper, Dziennik Milwaucki (Milwaukee Daily News), vied for the support of the steady rise of Prolish Catholics, and swamped Father Skulik's newspaper. The Katolik hunted for a new editor the following November.

On April 9, 1899, Bishop John Spalding appointed Father Skulik pastor of a large Polish parish, St. Hyacinth's, in La Salle, Illinois, on the banks of the Illinois River, 100 miles southeast of Chicago. When he arrived there, the zinc foundries and coal diggings reminded him of Myslowice in Upper Silesia. He learned that the first Polish settlers, who worked in the zinc and coal industries, were organized in 1874 by Father Erazm Bratkiewicz who held the first Mass in an Irish school. Actually, in 1900, 25 years after Bishop Thomas Foley blessed the first church in the United States named after St. Hyacinth, a Polish saint, Father Skulik was the first one to write a history of the parish and listed the names of the founders. The first edifice was destroyed by fire on the Sunday after Christmas in 1890 and a new one with red bricks took its place on August 14, 1892.

For the first time in his life Father Skulik did not have to spend time with building a church. The Polish parish of LaSalle already had a beautiful Gothic-styled church. With a poor Catholic school, however, he noticed a steady increase of Polish children in La Salle's public schools. To combat the trend, he started a Polish newspaper, Tygodnik Katolicki (Catholic Weekly); Zoaves, a quasi military society for boys in St. Hyacinth's school, and an up-to-date, three-story school building -- the largest one in the Diocese of Peoria. When Bishop Spalding officiated at the dedication of the school in 1909, he emphasized "the importance of knowing the language of one's ancestors and the need for more and better religious schools throughout America."

During his administration, Father Skulik also installed a pipe organ; stained glass windows; statues, and a unique six dialed clock in the spire. Murals were added. He built a three story brick parsonage in 1909.

Pretty soon Father Skulik's legal troubles overshadowed his legacy. In April 1910, after he was caught in a Chicago hotel with a 15-year-old girl, Bishop Spalding removed him as pastor of St. Hyacinth's parish. After doing penance, Father Skulik had another opportunity to redeem himself when the Bishop of Peoria put him in charge of a Catholic parish in East Moline, Illinois, across the Mississippi River from Davenport, Iowa. In 1913, he was arrested for fraudulent use of the mails, for which he was never tried. He skipped bail.

Nobody knew where he was until June 15, 1914, when Father Skulik, disguised as a wealthy American, boarded the 19,360-ton German steamer, SS Kronpriszessin Cecilia, and sailed from a dock in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Bremerhaven, Germany. It was built by Polish workers at Szczecin who had a saying, "The more stacks, the better the ship." The Kronpriszessin Cecilia had four stacks.

As Father Skulik later admitted when he applied for a new passport, first he stayed at the seminary in central Italy, where he had studied for the priesthood, and moved a year and a half later to Zurich, Switzerland, where he found another hiding place.

Had he waited until the next time the ship sailed from Hoboken, the Kronspriszessin Cecilia was at sea, en route to Germany, when the First World War broke out. The North German Lloyd Line, which had spent about $5,000,000 to build the fourstacker, ordered the captain of the ship, carrying 628 passengers and a valuable cargo of gold and silver, to change course. It did not want to lose the ship to the German government. For awhile the captain steered the camouflaged ship through a heavy fog to prevent her capture. On August 4, 1914, the ship finally found a safe harbor in the coastal waters of Maine.

Father Skulik then remained four years in Europe, out of the war zone and extradiction to the United States, and on August 17, 1918, when the statute of limitations expired, he arrived back in the United States on the French ship La Touraine from Bordeaux, France. It is well to note that passports, to which he was entitled after he was naturalized on August 26, 1899, at La Salle, Illinois, listed his travels in and out of the United States. These passports contradict some of Myszor's assertions.
In the nadir of Father Skulik's career, he traveled so much in the United States that it is impossible to find details of his activities. For example, his length of stay in Blossburg, Pennsylvania, where he was administrator of St. Mary's parish, and his duties in Claremont, New Hampshire, where he was the second pastor of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in the last year of his life, are blank. The current pastor of the Polish church in Claremont said that Father Skulik changed the name of the patron saint of the church. It was originally our Lady of Ostrabama.

Father Skulik died at Manchester, New Hampshire, and was buried at St. Mary's Cemetery in Claremont.

No one really has cited all of Father Skulik's writings. Where are they? Newspapers, as is well known, have a short life. Other writings were destroyed, mislaid, or changed hands. The current owners are unidentified. The search for a copy of Historia Parafii sw. Jacka w LaSalle, Illinois, 1874-1900, which has a biography and a photograph of Father Skulik, and the manuscript of his journal, Notatki podroza po Stanach Zjednoczyconych (Notes from travels in the United States), is pending. Altogether, as far as is known, he published 21 works in Polish, two in Slovak, five in German, eleven in Italian, three in Latin, and three in English.

From: Edward Pinkowski - e-mail: [email protected] - (2011)

Skulik, Rev. Bernard Maria, Ph.D.

Clergyman. Writer. Born August 20, 1867 in Szopienice, Poland. Education in Myslowice and Krakow; studied mechanics; studied philosophy and theology in Rome, Italy, where he was ordained on December 19, 1891. In 1893 received Ph.D. degree in Rome; came to United States; appointed pastor of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary parish, Brighton, Ia. From March 15, 1899 to April, 1910 pastor of St. Hyacinth's parish, La Salle, Ill. Settled in Milwaukee, Wis., where he published a Polish weekly "Katolik." From 1902 to 1905 editor of Polish weekly "Tygodnik Katolicki" and "Promien." Member of the highest papal academics in Rome. His writings are numerous: 21 in Polish, 2 in Slovak, 5 in German, 11 in Italian, 3 in Latin, 3 in English. Wrote: "Sznaps," "Stolica Madrosci," "Teologia Pastoralna," "Luter i Djabel," "Kielnia Masonska," "Historja Parafji Sw. Jacka w La Salle, Ill."

From: "Who's Who in Polish America" by Rev. Francis Bolek, Editor-in-Chief; Harbinger House, New York, 1943

Jerzy Myszor's Article about Fr. Skulik [Arrow Picture]