Catholic newspaper to have section for Polish faithful

The Irish Catholic newspaper is to dedicate a section of its weekly publication to the country’s growing Polish community, it was announced today.

A variety of news, feature and opinion pieces will be aimed at the estimated 150,000 Polish who have made their home in the state. Of those, almost 90% are Catholic.

Editor Garry O’Sullivan said the move was an exciting departure for the newspaper.

“Ireland is changing fast and the Church in Ireland is changing as well,” he said. “We want to meet that challenge.

“We have identified a desire among Polish Catholics living in Ireland to read more about their faith and to know more about the Church in Ireland.”

A growing number of parishes in the country are now holding weekly Polish Masses to serve the needs of its community. They include St Michan’s and St Saviour’s Churches in the Dublin Diocese, which currently boasts three Polish priests.

“Roughly there are around 80,000 Polish people living in the Dublin Dioceses and a high population of them are church-going Catholics,” said Fr Gerry Kane, co-ordinator of Pastoral Care of Foreign Nationals. “We need to have services to provide for them, but we are not setting up a ghetto.

“Some come here for a short time for economic reasons and we need facilities for them in their own language and ethnic background so they can celebrate national days and religious holidays. Others, who stay to become new Irish, integrate into the parishes they have settled in.”

The Barryroan parish priest said the services bring foreign nationals together, giving them the chance to support each other both spiritually and socially.

The Irish Catholic is co-ordinating its content of the page with the recently-established Polish Chaplaincy in Ireland, a body set up to cater for the pastoral needs of Poles living in Ireland.

As well as targeting the Polish community in large urban areas, the publication hopes to also aid those living in isolated areas by providing the weekly Mass readings in Polish so they can follow the liturgy in their own parishes.

Established in November 2005, the Polish Chaplaincy in Ireland is headed by Rev Jaroslaw Maszkiewicz, a priest from Archdiocese of Warsaw.

Based at St Mary of the Angels Church, Church Street, Dublin 7, it can be contacted via www.polish-chaplaincy.ie

The Irish Catholic is published every Thursday.