A Place to Go for Mass and Pirogi
For more than two decades, Orange County's Pope John Paul II Polish Center has been a cultural and religious hub for thousands of Polish Americans.
In a county that has no Polish enclaves, the Yorba Linda center has become a headquarters of sorts where expatriates and others can worship as well as gab about Poland's entry into the European Union over coffee, golabki and pirogi.
"We want to keep our culture," said Frances Chlebowicz Ports, who came to the United States in 1949. "We want our children to remember and have some idea who the Polish people are."
The center has a chapel, meeting hall and classrooms. Inside, a portrait of Pope John Paul II hangs on one wall, his hands clasped in prayer. A shrine to Mary, who is referred to as Our Lady of Czestochowa, the Black Madonna, is near the altar.
The Polish community put down roots slowly in Orange County. After World War II, many Polish people attended Mass at a Los Angeles Roman Catholic church. Then they moved to another in Anaheim, then held services at a Catholic high school, and, for a time, at a funeral parlor.
At each site, they raised funds to buy a future church site by selling Polish food and holding an annual harvest festival that still draws thousands to the center each September.
In the late 1970s, the Rose Drive property where the center now stands, about three miles from the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace, was purchased. Cardinal Karol Wojtyla from Krakow, Poland, had been selected pope, and the center was named in his honor. It opened in 1983.
"Many of us knew him when he was the archbishop in Krakow," said Lila Ciecek, 79, of Tustin, who was among the original group that founded the center.
Though seen by many as a church, officially it's a center because it serves a specific community, not a territory, and has no full-time priest for its 2,000 families, said Father Douglas Cook, the center's director. The families come from around the region, including West Covina and San Diego.
"But it functions like a church for the Polish community," he said.
Cook works full time at the Diocese in Orange but oversees the center along with several others, including Father Henryk Noga, whose command of Polish is better than Cook's.
"My Polish is a little rusty," said Cook, who was born in Omaha, Neb., but whose ancestors are from Poland.
