A Polish National Catholic Church in northeast Minneapolis was badly damaged by fire April 19. The church, Sacred Heart of Jesus, is unaffiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, but has a historical connection to it, especially some northeast Minneapolis Catholic parishes, which share a history of ministering to Polish immigrant Catholics.

According to a news release from the Minneapolis Fire Department, firefighters responded to the blaze at Sacred Heart of Jesus at the 2200 block of Fifth Street NE just before 7 p.m. Due to “compromising structural integrity,” two crews fought the fire from the building’s exterior. They extinguished the fire, but the roof collapsed and there was extensive damage to the building. No one was injured, and the cause is under investigation.

The fire happened as tensions continue within the Twin Cities due to the trial of former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin for the May 2020 death of George Floyd, and the April 11 police-involved shooting death of Duante Wright in Brooklyn Center.

“There no indications that the fire is associated with any civil unrest at this time,” Melanie Rucker, assistant chief of administration and the public information officer for the Minneapolis Fire Department, told The Catholic Spirit.

Sacred Heart of Jesus’ church is more than 100 years old, according to a GoFundMe page set up to raise money for the parish after the fire. That page states that “it looks like most of the contents of the church will be unsalvageable.”

Members of nearby Holy Cross, a Roman Catholic Church located about six blocks south of Sacred Heart of Jesus, planned to visit the damaged church and meet with its leaders the morning of April 20. Holy Cross was founded as a parish of Polish immigrants in 1886, and it continues to minister to Polish-speaking Catholics, including new immigrants. It is the only parish in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to offer a regular Sunday Mass, as well as other sacraments, in Polish.

Jim Gajewski, Holy Cross’ director of operations, told The Catholic Spirit April 20 that Holy Cross and Sacred Heart of Jesus don’t have strong ties, but that Holy Cross “is concerned, and we will be reaching out to them in support if there’s anything we can do to assist them in this tragedy that hit them, just as we would any neighboring congregation.”

Polish National Catholic Church

Sacred Heart of Jesus church is part of the Polish National Catholic Church, which formed in 1897 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, amid widespread tensions between Catholic Polish-American immigrants’ desire to retain control over the parishes they founded, and the local Roman Catholic bishops’ parish control, including the right to designate a parish’s pastor. A Roman Catholic priest and Polish immigrant, Father Franciszek Hodur, led the founding of a separate church, and subsequently sought and received consecration as a bishop in Utrecht, Netherlands, by three bishops in the Old Catholic Church, a schismatic church that has retained apostolic succession. The PNCC was a member of the Old Catholic Union of Utrecht until 2003.

Because the Roman Catholic Church recognizes that the PNCC, though schismatic, retains valid apostolic succession, or lines of ordination traceable to the Apostles, it considers its sacraments valid but illicit, meaning PNCC priests and bishops are not authorized by the Roman Catholic Church to celebrate the sacraments.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and representatives of the PNCC have been in a formal dialogue since the early 1980s, after Pope St. John Paul II, himself Polish, in 1980 called on the U.S. bishops to explore the possibility of dialogue between the churches. In 1993, Cardinal Edward Cassidy, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, stated that PNCC members in the U.S. and Canada may receive the sacraments of penance, holy Communion and anointing of the sick from Roman Catholic priests if they meet certain conditions. A 1996 Vatican letter confirmed that decision, adding more detail. In 1998, the Polish National Catholic Church issued a document allowing Roman Catholics the possibility of receiving those same sacraments in the Polish National Catholic Church in certain circumstances. The dialogue is ongoing.

Sacred Heart of Jesus is one of two Polish National Catholic Churches in Minnesota. The other is St. Josephat in Duluth.