“God Had Other Plans”: New Voice Leads Local Polish National Church
- Philip Thibodeau
- 10 hours ago
- 7 min read
People visit Holy Trinity Polish National Church on Summer Street for many reasons: some are seeking fellowship, some are looking to connect with the sacred, some are dealing with matters of life and death.
But sometimes their reasons are less weighty. In the case of the Southington Outsider, our eye was caught by a sign planted in front of the church building that read ‘For PIEROGI CALL 860-628-0736.’ After dialing the number, a recorded message asked us to state how many pierogi of each kind – potato, cheese, sauerkraut, and sweet cabbage – we would like to order. It then invited the purchaser to come by after mass on Sunday to pick them up. “When you arrive,” says the message recorded by Father Justin Daviault, the head of Holy Trinity, “look for the guy with the white collar. That’s me.”
After picking up our pierogi and having them for lunch – they were very good - we reached out to Daviault for an interview, which he readily agreed to. Daviault became head of the parish last summer after the unexpected death of its longtime pastor, Father Joseph Krusienski, or ‘Father Joe,' as he was known to many people in town.
The Polish National Church is an independent Catholic denomination that preserves many of the more traditional practices of Catholicism. It was founded in 1897 by Polish Catholics who felt that the leaders of the church in North America, who were mainly Irish and German, were not treating them with due respect. Headquartered in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the church maintains parishes all over the US and Canada, but with most in the Northeast. While still paying tribute to its Polish roots, its services are typically held in English, as they are in the Plantsville church; these days, however, there is a growing trend to accommodate Spanish-speakers.
“I grew up in the Roman Catholic Church,” said Daviault when asked about his background, “but I joined the Polish National Church through my wife and some other factors. Eventually, I realized that I was led here, that I didn’t have a choice. A few years back, I just surrendered. ‘Tell me what you want me to, I’ll do it,’ I told God. He just makes it work out.”
“My seminary journey was a little different,” he went on. “I was studying to be a deacon. You can do that at home and have your classes online, which I was doing while working full-time. It took me a little longer than the average person, but I got through it all. And the closer I got to becoming a deacon, I realized that my calling was to become a priest."
"So one day, when I was talking to my bishop, he said ‘you need to go to the seminary for no less than three months to finish your discernment’.”
“Three months is a long time to take off from work. And this is when God intervenes, just like He does every time. I’m a thickheaded kind of a guy – you’ve got to hit me with a two-by-four. And that’s what God does when He wants me to do something. I was going to start in November, and I was getting ready to take three months off from my job – vacation time, unpaid time. God had other plans. In October I was laid off from my job; my last day was October 4. I was like: okay, I’m going to be at the seminary next week.”
“I became a priest on March 19 of last year. My bishop says we’re going to use you in reserve. So I was serving in reserve, when Father Senior passes away in June. No one was expecting that. I immediately start doing masses. The bishop sends me a letter: as of August 1, you’re the pastor. ‘Yes, bishop.’ God puts me where He wants me to be. It’s His choice.”
“Here is what I mean. I’m looking for a job, last year, right after I became a priest. I hear from my employer: ‘We’d like to hire you back, full time with full benefits.’ Okay! I’ll take it. I’m going back to full time in April this year. That’s how it works. He just makes it work out.”
Between leading the church and working a day job in the electronics industry, Father Daviault now has his hands full. “It’s an interesting, busy life,” he said. “The reason we’re sitting here [in the rectory kitchen] and not my office is that my office is still full of stuff. I’m trying to go through everything. Father Senior was in the middle of reorganizing when he passed away. It was a shock. So I’m still going through records trying to get caught up.”
“Everything is included in the job: grounds, plumbing, you name it. I have to involve the parish committee in everything; all the members are elected.”
“This parish has been here since 1914. We still make pierogi, mostly for Christmas and Easter, but also when people want it. You can come help the next time we’re rolling the dough – I’ll invite you! I’m the packer. Father Senior Joe used to make the dough and roll it out. Other guys were cutting the circles. We prepare all the potatoes the night before.”
“Other than my two parishes [in Southington and Wallingford], we’ve got ones in Prospect, Stratford, Norwich, and Manchester. If you go to Fall River, Massachusetts, there the parish has crank machines to help them do it. They’ll do 500 dozen – 500 dozen! – in one Saturday. Holy smokes! They’ve got a strong parish.”
How strong is the Plantsville parish? “Strength is how many people are coming,” he replied. “On paper, close to 100; active members, between 25 and 30. The problem is when the kids aren’t coming, because the more kids you have, the more stuff you can do, the more activities.”
“I can think of people younger than myself that have children that are not baptized, which just blows my mind. In the old days, if you were unbaptized, you couldn’t be buried on consecrated ground. Suicides, the same. Nowadays, there is more information on mental disease. They normally don’t deny people burial because of suicide. I know of a spot in our cemetery with an unmarked grave where a whole bunch of children were buried. The year? 1917 – the Great Flu Epidemic. They were never baptized.”
“Sacraments are important. If the phone rings, you have to go. You can’t wait on someone who is dying. If I can’t go, I’m immediately calling one of my brother priests from the area to ask if they can. We cover for each other, for sacramental emergencies. That’s why my cell phone is on the answering machine. It does happen. If you are going to put on the collar, you’ve got to be ready to do the job.”
The American National Catholic Church (ANCC) is another independent Catholic denomination based in the United States. Based on the similar-sounding name, we asked whether it had any relation to the Polish National Catholic Church. Daviault made quite clear that the answer was no. “If someone comes into our parish and says I’m going to be in favor of abortion,” referring to one of the ANCC’s liberal tenets, “I’m sorry, I can’t help you. I can bless you, but I can’t in good conscience do the sacrament.”
“We have two forms of penance in our church. You can come in, sit down, and confess your sins. The second form we have is public confession. Public confession is part of the mass. You confess your sins and receive absolution from the priest, so you are eligible for communion.”
“I don’t have the power to look into your heart. But if you demonstrate consistently something, and it’s not an addiction – some people are addicted, and they try and try and try, you do their best to help them. But to consistently advocate for the murder of unborn children, it’s almost unforgivable.”
Wouldn’t the Roman Catholic church have said something similar about divorce? we asked. “If you go strictly by what’s written in the Bible, that’s true,” he answered. “Those are sins. That doesn’t mean you can’t overcome those sins. People do. But if you are a consistent advocate for something over twenty, thirty, forty years, we are past the point of overcoming those sins.”
“When Ecclesiastes says there is a time to every purpose under heaven, is there a time for an abortion? Good question, isn’t it? I propose that there is, but you shouldn’t do it like they currently do.”
“Are you familiar with an ectopic pregnancy? The pregnancy is in the fallopian tube. The pregnancy is going to kill the woman. Ideally you should go in, remove the baby and try to save it, even if it may not be medically possible. You are trying with the intention of doing something. Okay.”
“Do we have people within our churches who lean towards homosexual behavior? Yes, we do. We’ve talked about it. We all know what the Bible says. So if you come in here and you’re trying to better yourself, no issue, no issue at all. Now am I going to take the rainbow flag and fly it from my church? No, that’s condoning, and I can’t condone. So: condoning? No. Accepting, try to help people? Yes, all day long. I don’t care about the circumstances, we will try to help you.”
“You can’t be a ‘cafeteria Catholic’ and say, ‘I like this, I like this, but I don’t like that.’ In 325 AD, 1701 years ago, what was in the Bible was basically solidified by the Council of Nicaea. For the last 1700 years, that has been the Bible, even if, during the Reformation, Martin Luther and those guys tried to take books out of the Bible.”
What about traditional practices? Does the Polish National Church observe the no-meat-on-Fridays rule? “Technically, yes,” he answered. “The weeks after Easter, are considered an exception. The couple of weeks after Christmas are also an exception.”
Do you do meatless Wednesdays too? “Yes we do, that’s correct. On Wednesdays during Lent. And if you want to go strict, you fast all day on Wednesday and don’t eat until sundown. On Good Friday, you don’t eat until sundown.”
“This year, if all goes the way I want it to, we are going to do the full devotional. On Holy Thursday I am going to expose the Holy Sacrament and hopefully have enough volunteers to keep it out until Easter. I remember doing that when I was a kid. I went out with my father at 2 o’clock in the morning. I’m nine years old and sleeping in the pew. We used to do that. We’re trying to bring back the older traditions.”
“If you come on Sunday, you will see stations of the cross right after mass. We used to do them on Fridays, but unfortunately a lot of people can’t make it. You can watch it online if you want. This year my guy is going to be able to move the camera so you can see it.”
Holy Trinity Polish National Church's Youtube channel is here.
