Latest news with #PolishCatholic
Chicago Tribune
01-08-2025
- General
- Chicago Tribune
A new memoir turns surviving Cleveland childhood into a triumph of spirit.
What do a deathbed, a dentist's drill and a bottle of Olde English furniture polish have in common? According to author C. A. Sadlowski, everything. In her latest book, 'The Hanging Branch Club: A Cleveland Time Capsule,' Sadlowski digs deep into the cluttered attic of mid-20th-century memory, dusts off the ridiculous and makes it radiantly relatable. Part memoir, part confession and all heart, 'The Hanging Branch Club' unspools the early life of a tall, smart-mouthed Polish Catholic girl growing up in a neighborhood where the rules were unspoken but ironclad. Unless, of course, you wrote them down yourself — which Hope Sarnecki did and thus was born the Hanging Branch Club, a survival pact for her and her siblings to navigate their formidable mother, an ever-changing cast of oddball relatives and the challenges of growing up with too few bras and too many confessions. 'It's my love letter to an unfiltered Cleveland,' Sadlowski explains. 'To the women who ruled with wooden spoons, the back porches where secrets were spilled and the kids who made sense of it all by making up clubs, songs and clever exits.' From ducking the wrath of a mother wielding a broom to inventing saintlike patience at piano lessons with Miss Birch, Sadlowski's Hope is the kind of narrator who finds wisdom in the weeds of her grandmother's garden and rebellion in the back seat of a blue Ford coupe. And just when you're laughing, she lands a moment so poignant you'll stop to underline it. 'I laughed out loud. Then I cried. Then I called my mom,' said one early reader. 'This book brought it all back — the smells, the fears, the family code of silence — and made me fall in love with childhood all over again.' Whether you were raised Polish Catholic or not, if you've ever tried to dodge your mom's mood swings, faced off with a school nun or thought about throwing a sibling under the bus to survive, 'The Hanging Branch Club' is for you.
Chicago Tribune
11-07-2025
- General
- Chicago Tribune
From the Farm: Carmelite Monastery includes a celestial nod with grotto celebration
Our family comes from a devout Polish Catholic faith foundation. Being so, Catholic teachings denounce horoscopes and astrology as a contradiction of the First Commandment, with the reasoning 'astrology and horoscopes are seen as attempts to seek knowledge or to influence events through means other than God, thus violating the First Commandment's call to worship God alone.' In conflict, in our identity as a devoted newspaper family, we also admit we love to read the daily syndicated horoscope features in all of the Northwest Indiana and Chicago newspapers, at least for 'entertainment purposes.' I adopt the philosophy taught to me by journalist mentor and church catechism teacher Stanley Pieza, who passed at age 88 in 1994. He was a retired religion reporter for The Chicago Daily American, and later The Chicago Tribune. Pieza cited to his Sunday school students examples of how celestial maps and charting of the stars remain as undeniable evidence that the bible details stars in the skies as important guide references in verses and passages. A notable example is in the birth of Moses, and later, Jesus' birth. When Pharaoh ordered all of the newborn males of his kingdom and surrounding area to be killed, as explained in the Book of Exodus, his trusted advisors warned him of a foretelling prophecy in the stars that a newborn Hebrew male would stifle the power of Pharaoh. Similarly, in the Gospel of Matthew, King Herod ordered all male infants under age two in Bethlehem to be killed after the three visiting Magi (astrologers) told him of 'the birth of a new king.' The Magi 'were 'guided by a star in the north to find the newborn and pay him homage.' Often mistakenly referenced, 'shepherds in their fields' did not follow the star of Bethlehem to find Jesus. The shepherds were visited by an angel and guided to the infant king. Today, the history of stars, the heavens and astrology is still a tightly woven and colorful tapestry. At 5 p.m. Thursday, July 19, Diocese of Gary Bishop Robert J. McClory will be in Munster at the Carmelite Monastery and Grotto to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Carmelite Fathers making Northwest Indiana their pilgrimage worship home. I've always been in awe of the sunken gardens and grotto located on this property along 1628 Ridge Road in Munster. Among the priceless artifacts, shining stones and granite and quartz pieces gathered from around the world, there is an intact meteorite embedded in one of the wall crevasses at an undisclosed (and protected) location. I'm told the meteorite ('shooting star') fell in the wilderness of Siberia and was gathered and transported to be included at the shrine with the grotto as a new home. Thursday's celebration begins at 5 p.m., with the bishop conducting mass, followed by 6 p.m. outdoor fellowship, food and choral music and capped by 7:30 p.m. outdoor eucharistic adoration and worship. For more information, visit The beautiful and inspiring grounds at the Shrine and Monastery property are comprised of the Marian Grotto, the Stations of the Cross (of which the 14th Station, the Grotto of the Lord's Tomb, deserves and receives special attention), the monastery church that has the miraculous figure of Our Lady of Ludźmierz, Queen of the Polish Highlanders, the Chapel of Our Lady of Mercy, and the Highlanders' Chapel. Nestled among the trees in the quiet of the garden are figures of Polish saints and others associated with Carmel, including St. Therese of the Child Jesus and St. Louis Martin, her father, St. Raphael Kalinowski, St. Maximilian Kolbe and St. John Paul II. The statue of St. Raphael Kalinowski (whom the Polish School on the monastery grounds is named for) was unveiled in 2007 in memory of the victims of the Katyn Massacre during WWII. There is an urn inside the Polish eagle at St. Raphael's feet containing soil from the Katyn Forest. At the base of this hauntingly beautiful memorial are 'skulls' with 'bullet holes' in the back of their heads, representing the thousands of victims (which included soldiers, clergy, educators, doctors) who were executed and buried in mass graves. A small Eastern Redbud tree named 'Rafalek' was planted near the statue of St. Raphael Kalinowski on the occasion of the 55th anniversary of the school in November 2023. I'm told 'to emphasize the inexpressible spiritual beauty of God's mercy, extra attention is devoted' to the many statues created with Italian Carrara marble in grottos and chapels. These statues, sculpted by Italian artists, are decorated with the many unusual minerals, crystals, and rock formations, some translucent to glow in the dark, as well as the rare and unique meteorite, which is really a 12-inch-long 'piece' of a larger meteorite that landed on the grounds of the Carmelite Fathers' monastery in Siberia decades ago. The Discalced Carmelite Fathers Monastery in Munster was founded in 1952 by a group of Polish Discalced Carmelite friars who came to America after World War II to devote themselves to the pastoral care of their countrymen. I'm told it is for this same reason, so many parts of the shrine are devoted for visitors to become better acquainted with Polish tradition and history. The shrine has been designated as a pilgrimage site in the Diocese of Gary's observance of the Jubilee Year of Hope 2025. One of my most memorable visits to this powerful and impactful landscape was in spring 2023 when a visiting troupe of performers presented a production of 'The Passion of Christ.' Director Cecylia Jablonska heads the non-profit Live Theater Production Company, based in Chicago, which hosts the run of the seasonal stage telling reaching audiences of all ages for more than 35 years since the company launched in Poland, based at Michelle Zaborowski of Elmwood Park, Illinois, starred as 'Claudia,' the wife of Pontius Pilate, in the live performance I saw two years ago. Michelle participated in the Polish Walking Marian Pilgrimage connecting Chicago, Munster and Merrillville on the trek and sang with the praise choir during the recent event. She is sharing her mother's heirloom recipe for a traditional Polish mushroom soup with readers for today's column. 1 heaping cup dried mushrooms 2 carrots, chopped 1 parsley root, chopped 1/2 celery root, chopped 1 leek, chopped 1 tablespoon butter, divided use 1 onion, chopped Salt and pepper 4 tablespoons chopped parsley Directions: Wash the mushrooms and soak them in water for a few hours. Cook mushrooms in the same water in which they were soaked for 8 to 10 minutes or until soft and tender. Drain the mushrooms, reserving the water broth. Peel, wash, and dice the vegetables, and add them to the pot. Add 1/2 tablespoon butter to pot, season contents with salt and pepper and simmer lightly. Stir while simmering, being careful not to burn the vegetables. Once soup has lightly simmered for 20-30 minutes, pour some added boiling water into pot to create desired consistency and bring the broth to a boil. Cook for another 30 minutes. Strain the cooked vegetable broth and add it to the mushroom broth. Finely chop the drained mushrooms and add them to the soup. Season the soup with more salt and pepper to taste, add additional butter and parsley as desired. Serve with lazanki (a cabbage and noodles mix) or pasta.
Daily Mirror
29-04-2025
- General
- Daily Mirror
'We were lovers who lost each other after escaping Auschwitz - we met up decades later'
As the horrors of Auschwitz unfolded around them, two 20-somethings found love, lost one another then reunited decades later – leading to one of the most remarkable escapes of WWII Jerzy Bielecki, a Polish Catholic, and Cyla Cybulska, a Jew from eastern Poland whose entire family was murdered by the Nazis, worked together in the camp's grain silo. 'Amidst the horrors of the death camp, men and women were actually forbidden to speak to one another,' says historian Dr Kate Vigurs. 'But there were instances where they would come together on work details or brush up against one another within prison life. 'As in the case of Jerzy and Cyla, they met one another on a work detail. She caught his eye and the two instantly fell in love.' When Cyla witnessed an SS guard shoot her best friend dead, Jerzy knew they had to escape in order to survive. Slowly, he gathered all the pieces of a German guard's uniform and a security pass, determined to smuggle Cyla out too. Then in May 1944, with the plan ready, Cyla stopped arriving for work. Jerzy was petrified she'd been taken to the punishment block – or executed. But after several desperate weeks, a noted smuggled from Cyla confirmed she was alive and had been transferred to the camp laundry. Jerzy quickly put his plan in motion. On July 20 1944, he passed a note back to Cyla, telling her to be ready for a guard to take her for interrogation. The next day, a 'guard' arrived at the laundry. To Cyla's astonishment, it was Jerzy dressed in the stolen German uniform. 'They managed to walk through the camp, out the main entrance and out onto the road, essentially to freedom,' says Dr Vigurs. 'And they just kept walking.' They walked for nine days through Nazi-occupied Poland, outwitting the death squads sent to find them, until they reached the home of one of Jerzy's uncles. There, they parted, advised that they were in greater danger of being caught if they stayed together. Jerzy hid with the Polish resistance, and Cyla was taken in by a local family, with the young sweethearts vowing to reunite when war was over. But each later believed the other had died. Cyla moved to America, eventually marrying and having a daughter. Jerzy stayed in Poland also marrying and having a family. Then in 1982, Cyla, then a widow, told a friend of her incredible escape. The friend recalled a Polish man named Jerzy on TV recounting his own remarkable escape. He was alive and working as a school principal in Poland. The pair reunited in 1983, when Cyla flew back to Poland to find the man who had rescued her 39 years earlier, visiting places linked to their escape. Their remarkable story did not end with a romantic reunion, with Jerzy devoted to his wife and children, its huge significance remains. 'This couple have become known as the lovers of Auschwitz,' says Dr Vigurs. 'If it hadn't been for their love for one another inside the camp, perhaps they would never have escaped. They might not even have survived. So their love made sure that they got out of the camp, and that they lived a very full and long life.' Hidden death camp Sobibor, a Nazi death camp in a remote part of eastern Poland, is less known than others like Auschwitz – because almost no-one who went there survived to recount the atrocities that took place. 'This camp existed solely for the extermination of Jewish people,' says historian Mat McLachlan. 'They were sent there on trains, and fairly swiftly killed thereafter.' Of the thousands sent to Sobibor, just 50 or so survived. Among them was Alexander Pechersky, a Ukrainian Jew who fought for the Red Army before his capture in 1941. After harrowing experiences in other camps, Pechersky was transferred to Sobibor along with 100 other Soviet Jewish POWs in September 1943. Forced into labour at the camp, fear loomed large that if he grew too weak to carry on, he faced certain death. Desperate to survive he masterminded a mass escape. Within weeks of his arrival at Sobibor, his plot sprang into action, on October 14 1943. Prisoners lured a senior Nazi to the camp's tailor shop with a pretence of fitting him for a suit. Moments later, he was axed to death in the prison workshop. Over the coming hours, 10 more guards were quietly killed and their uniforms stolen, as Pechersky planned to lead an attack on the SS soldiers guarding the main gate. When a German soldier started shooting elsewhere in the camp, the prisoners were shocked into action and their fightback began ahead of schedule. 'The uprising was incredibly violent,' says Mat McLachlan. 'The prisoners took the opportunity to overwhelm the guards, and most of the guards were killed with axes. It would have been an absolutely horrific environment. 'Once the uprising had been discovered, the guards opened fire and prisoners were fleeing in all directions, people getting shot on the wire, more guards were being killed. It was just absolutely overwhelming violence in the camp.' But 300 men, women and children escaped, chased by guards with guns and dogs. Within days, 100 had been found and executed, with others starving and wandering in the forest. A small number – including Pechersky – evaded capture and survived the war. The Ukrainian hero was sent back to the front before being wounded in battle and invalided out of the Red Army in 1944. He died in 1990. Dr Kate Vigurs says: 'The legacy of the Sobibor uprising is incredibly important… It shows that the Jews did resist, that there was fighting back against the Holocaust and against the prison system. They didn't just willingly go to their deaths, as has so often been said. It showed a real determination for survival.' The brutalities of Auschwitz More than a million people were slaughtered in Auschwitz, 90% of them Jews. That tally may have been even higher without the astonishing actions of two men who managed to escape and reveal to the world the true horrors Hitler and his henchmen had unleashed there. Rudolph Vrba, born Walter Rosenburg, was 17 when he arrived at the camp in June 1942. Within days he witnessed the hanging of two prisoners who had tried to escape. But the guards' brutality made him more determined to escape. For 10 nightmarish months, the young Slovakian was forced to clear wagons of bodies at the railway station, rifling through the personal possessions of the dead. Malnourished and traumatised, even battling typhus, Vrba made a mental record of what he saw – the number of train arrivals, wagons and prisoners. In early 1944, Vrba and fellow inmate Alfred Wetzler, a friend from his hometown, learned the Nazis were preparing for the arrival of Hungary's entire Jewish population - meaning certain death for thousands of men, women and children. So they hatched a plan to escape, determined to expose the atrocities of Auschwitz to the world. On April 7, 1944, the men climbed into a space inside a woodpile. Hidden, they pushed oil-soaked tobacco into the gaps to deter the sniffer dogs hunting them with the German guards. For three days they lay in silence in the dark and cold, without food or drink. Historian Mat McLachlan says: 'At one stage, they could hear a couple of German guards nearby conducting the search, musing as to whether the woodpile would be a good hiding place. The German guards actually began removing wood from the pile. But fortunately there was a commotion elsewhere in the camp and the guards ran off.' Incredibly, by disturbing so much of the wood, the guards had made it easier for Vrba and Wetzler to push their way free. Soon, under the cover of darkness, they crawled to a nearby forest – where they began their treacherous 130km journey through Nazi-occupied Poland towards the Slovakian border. Mat McLachlan says: 'The penalty for assisting Jews and escaped prisoners in Poland was death. Yet, a local lady took them in and provided them with shelter and clothing.' But the danger kept on coming. Travelling onward, the pair were spotted by a Nazi patrol, shot at and chased by tracker dogs - escaping by plunging into a river. Finally, 14 days after evading their captors, they made it to the safety of Slovakia on April 21. There they wrote the earthshattering Vrba-Weltzer Report containing horrifying details about the true nature of Auschwitz, its gas chambers and crematoria. Mat McLachlan says: 'Finally, the rest of the world understood the depth of the horror in the German camps.' On July 6 1944, 90 days after the daring escape, Hungarian Regent Miklos Horthy abandoned plans to send more Jews to Auschwitz. Dr Vigurs says: 'Most of the Jews in the Hungarian suburbs had already been deported straight into Birkenau and murdered straight away, but there were still 200,000 Jews within Budapest, and this report stopped their deportation.' The Vrba-Wetzler Report would later be used as evidence at the Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunals of 1946. VE Day 80 on Sky HISTORY marks 80 years since the end of World War 2 with a selection of curated documentaries throughout April and May Greatest Escapes of WWII will premiere on Tuesday 29th April at 9pm
Washington Post
03-04-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
New Martin disclosures show outreach to right-wing politicians in Europe
Interim D.C. U.S. attorney Ed Martin has boosted members of European far-right and conservative political parties in Germany, Poland and Hungary, according to new government disclosure reports and public records that also show he counted a Polish Catholic legal organization and antiabortion group as one of his law firm's top clients in 2024.
The Independent
03-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Even if millions tune into Meghan's new show - there is a deeper problem she can't fix
Off camera, a man's voice says, 'Let's make a show!' Meghan smiles broadly, her face framed by her perfectly unstyled dark hair. She sizzles something in a pan, pats an aged beagle, wanders along the rows of a grand potager, basket in hand, and arranges flowers as she tells us: 'I see what colour I gravitate to, and everything comes from there.' The unspoken part: as long as that colour is white, taupe, oatmeal, bone, string, putty... the whole beige rainbow. This is the trailer for the Duchess of Sussex's new show, With Love, Meghan, which comes to Netflix on 15 January. The vibe is 'everyday princess, just like you': 'I've always loved taking something pretty ordinary and elevating it, surprising people with moments that let them know I was really thinking of them.' To be fair to Meghan, she's always been interested in the domestic arts. Before marrying Harry, she had a blog called The Tig (named after her favourite red wine, Tignanello), where she documented favourite restaurants, cocktails, backyard barbecues. On the night Harry proposed, she was apparently making roast chicken, and the lore quickly developed that it was Ina Garten's 'engagement chicken', a recipe that is apparently so delicious, you're guaranteed an ethically sourced diamond before you've even simmered those bones into stock. But at first glance of the show's trailer, it isn't fun-time recipe pusher and cocktail queen Ina Garten who comes to mind, but the uber domestic goddess Martha Stewart, she who parlayed a rich-lady Connecticut catering company into a billion-dollar empire of magazines, books, television shows and Kmart towels. It's hardly surprising that, in Martha's own recent Netflix documentary, she described her five-month prison stint as 'a rest'. What a difference a few decades make. When Martha created her empire, it was about so much more than teaching nice ladies how to cook, garden and keep house. She was the Andy Warhol of domesticity. She elevated it. To an extent, she created it, promising that – with no small amount of hard work and commitment – this perfect life of well-bred perfection was accessible to all. What we now think of as a late-20th-century, high 'Wasp' aesthetic was largely her invention. It was a long way from where she was raised, in Nutley, New Jersey. She was one of six children of Polish Catholic parents; her father, an angry alcoholic, was such a bigot that he slapped his daughter in the face when, at 19, she announced she was marrying Andrew Stewart (who is Jewish). Respectability was important, and perfection was part of that. Martha learnt gardening under her father's gaze, and cooking and housekeeping from her mother. She gained their approval – and avoided his anger – by doing everything well. Moving forward a few decades, Meghan tells us in her trailer: 'We're not in the pursuit of perfection, we're in the pursuit of joy. Love is in the details!' Martha would never. There is much to be said for the have-a-go philosophy of our times: what's the worst that can happen? Where this approach can fall down is when complex skills are presented as being incredibly simple. Do you have a spare afternoon? Why not replaster your house. The most prolific offenders in this category are the high priestesses of the #TradWife movement, Nara Smith and Hannah Neeleman, who just this week, in a supreme example of what happens when two insane worlds collide, both made rice crispies from scratch for their millions of Instagram followers. Obviously, do what you like with your own time, though neither of these women look like they're enjoying themselves. But it becomes problematic when recipes (or tasks) are presented as simple, easy, quick, only five ingredients, only 15 minutes, two seconds from farm to table, grow your own honey bees, grind your own wheat in a window box. In 1981, Alexei Sayle parodied the London neighbourhood of Stoke Newington as a terribly alternative place where everybody was growing their own denim and knitting their own yoghurt. Now there are whole generations who wouldn't even get the joke and would be searching 'how to grow denim' on TikTok. In the early Noughties, magazines such as Real Simple and Donna Hay (DH is the Australian Martha) led the way with a clean aesthetic, beautiful photographs, and as little text as possible cluttering up the place. As a food writer during this time, I was constantly being asked by editors: 'Can you do this in three steps? Can you write it in 80 words? Can you put it together in 10 minutes?' The answer was probably yes, I can do that. It'll make sense. It'll look easy. There will be more room for the lovely photographs. But how helpful will it really be? A recipe like that makes all kinds of assumptions – that the reader knows just how slowly to add the eggs to the cake batter so it won't curdle, precisely how long to sear the meat, what to look for when checking if the fish is done. Both have transformed themselves into lifestyle brands, creating meaning and purpose through slow-simmered casseroles, organic cauliflowers and artfully artless flower arrangements But then when it all goes horribly wrong, and the sauce splits, and the steak is like leather, the reader will think it's their fault, that they've done something wrong; that they've wasted their time and their money and their ingredients. The truth is, simple isn't simple at all. Making things simple often requires years of experience, of repeating the same old processes a thousand times until your brain, your hands and your nose learn them. I can't make the perfect meringue in my sleep, but almost... So while shows like With Love, Meghan may set out casually 'to create magic in every moment', at least with Martha you understand that magic is graft, knowledge and experience. While they may create magic by hammering a nail into a perfect white wall to hang a picture, with Martha, you'd know which wall finish requires what hardware, whether you'd need a hammer, which drill bit might be suitable, and what cord, hooks and other fixings would best suit the kind of art you're hanging. Once you got to the end of that 1,000-word piece, you'd really feel like you knew what you were doing, and could rest in the knowledge that little Caleb's painting you framed with the birch you felled yourself was never going to fall onto his darling tousled head and fell him right back. It's true that Modern Martha has calmed down a bit. This might or might not have something to do with her own line of CBD wellness gummies. It's entirely possible that being in her eighties is the most fun Martha's ever had – appearing on the front of Sports Illustrated in a golden bathing suit, hanging out with best pal Snoop Dogg at the Paris Olympics in full dressage gear, picking out heirloom chard seeds for her garden. Who knows? Just as with every other aspect of her life, Martha is doing old age better than anyone. While we associate her with the domestic arts, she would no doubt have excelled at whatever she chose to turn her hand to. From a difficult upbringing, she won a scholarship to the prestigious Barnard College, landed her rich Yale law school husband, and became one of the first female brokers on Wall Street in the late Sixties. It's hardly surprising that she did moving to the suburbs better than anyone had before, turning her home – a farmhouse named Turkey Hill, in Westport, Connecticut – into the cornerstone of a business empire that at its height would be worth a billion dollars. Simple. Though perhaps Martha and Meghan have more in common than we might think: Martha, the relentless high achiever, taking no nonsense, accepting no shortcuts, and Meghan, embracing joy and off-white linen at every opportunity. They both have challenging backgrounds and went on to reinvent themselves, romanticising their backstories – Martha's columns about growing up in Nutley went heavy on making bonnets for Easter, and placed less emphasis on her father's rage if she didn't plant the vegetables in straight lines. With Meghan, the press release is more hard-scrabble, up-by-the-boot-straps than privately educated daughter of an Emmy-winning lighting director. Both have transformed themselves into lifestyle brands, creating meaning and purpose through slow-simmered casseroles, organic cauliflowers, and artfully artless flower arrangements. Whether they make it look difficult or easy, in some ways they are cut from the same (table)cloth. But there is one way in which Martha exemplifies a key difference between the generations. Whatever she does, whether it is wax-polishing a table or signing a multimillion-dollar deal, she does it with all her might. Skill, finesse and scholarship are badges she wears proudly. She is frank about how long things take to do properly, and is the living embodiment of 'do things properly or not at all'. This is not the approach of the generations who have come after her, for whom 'have a go, try, fail, move on, do something else' has become a life mantra. In typical millennial fashion, throughout Meghan's butterfly career as an actor, campaigner, lifestyle influencer and princess, she has always appeared restless. Who knows how long it will be before she is back striving for the next big thing, barely allowing the ink to dry on the non-disclosure agreement as she branches into another new venture.
