Search
-
March 28, 2025By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press
VIEW THE PHOTO ALBUM
WEBSTER – Among people nearly filling St. Joseph Basilica for Bishop McManus’ pilgrimage there Sunday were American Heritage Girls on a pilgrimage of their own.
St. Joseph’s is one of the diocese’s pilgrimage sites for the Jubilee Year of Hope. The bishop came for vespers and a reception, and was joined by priests and people from around the diocese.
Jaclyn Dotzler, coordinator of AHG MA Troop 0716, of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Our Lady of Loreto Parish in Worcester, said the American Heritage Girls and their families walked from St. Louis Church to Sacred Heart of Jesus Church to St. Joseph’s. The girls were trying to earn their Jubilee Patch. As part of fulfilling the requirements “they’re praying the rosary, learning about pilgrimages, reading Scripture,” Mrs. Dotzler said.
“It was long for them, but overall they really enjoyed all of it,” she said later. “They’re very … invested in their faith. … They were really … taking in the imagery in the basilica” and the older girls were trying to figure out what the stained glass windows depict, for a badge they’re also working to earn.
There is much for pilgrims to look for in the basilica, including depictions of numerous saints, the coats of arms of bishops of Worcester and other church hierarchy, and the Jubilee Year 2000 logo (another year when St. Joseph’s was a pilgrimage site). Also displayed is the decree naming St. Joseph’s a pilgrimage church for the 2015-2016 Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy. (New elements were added to the church during major renovations in the 1990s, and it was rededicated and consecrated in 1997.)
The church also houses symbols of its status as a basilica.
The pope can honor, with the title of a minor basilica, a diocese’s churches “that have particular importance for liturgical and pastoral life,” says the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops website usccb.org/committees/divine-worship/policies/minor-basilica. In this way he signifies those churches’ “particular link” with the pope and “the Roman Church.”
Msgr. Anthony S. Czarnecki, St. Joseph’s previous pastor, who had connections with the U.S. bishops and Polish church leaders abroad, retired in 2019. He had worked for months to have St. Joseph’s named a basilica, which he said required meeting liturgical, devotional and physical requirements and getting approval from the local bishop, and what was then the United States Catholic Conference and the Vatican.
On Oct. 11, 1998 Bishop Daniel P. Reilly, then the Worcester Diocese’s ordinary, solemnly declared that Saint John Paul II, the pope at the time, had elevated St. Joseph’s to the status of a minor basilica, the only church in the diocese so named.
On that occasion, Bishop Reilly blessed the Vatican declaration raising St. Joseph’s to a basilica, and a memorial plaque, an umbrella like those historically used for popes, and a shepherd’s bell. The pole topped with three bells includes a carpenter’s square honoring the parish’s patron and the letters SJB for St. Joseph Basilica.
Depicted on the umbrella are the 1998 date, the papal keys and the basilica’s coat of arms.
Near the umbrella, under the statue of the Blessed Mother, is a relic of St. John Paul II, the first Polish pope. Father Grzegorz Chodkowski, pastor, said it is a piece of the pope’s cassock soaked with his blood from the assassination attempt against him in 1981.
St. Joseph’s, as a Polish parish, has celebrated St. John Paul II in a variety of ways. In 1999, when he was pope, St. Joseph Basilica Choir sang for him during a general audience and met with him afterwards.
In 2011, a new statue of then-Blessed John Paul II, erected on the church lawn, was blessed.
The John Paul II Foundation Chapter in New England is involved with celebrations at St. Joseph’s for the saint’s birthday and day of election as pope, Father Chodkowski said.
All this is not surprising, since St. Joseph’s was the first parish in New England for Polish-speaking Catholics.
The cornerstone of its original building was laid in 1887, and in 1888 the church was finished and the first Mass celebrated there, says “History of the Catholic Church in the Diocese of Springfield,” by Father John J. McCoy. The church was dedicated in 1889, and rededicated, after being enlarged, in 1893.
In 1891 the erection of a parish school started and in 1892 Felician Sisters welcomed 90 students.
In 1914 the present church building replaced the first church. In 1924 the present school was built.
Current students at St. Joseph School gave Bishop McManus and David Perda, superintendent of Catholic Schools, gifts at the pilgrimage reception Sunday. Helping with the presentation were Felician Sister Jeanne Marie Akalski, fourth-grade teacher, and Beth Boudreau, principal.
One of the bishop’s gifts was a book of drawings fourth-graders made to illustrate their class poem “A Year of Hope,” which was read at a Mass Jan. 12 to open the Jubilee Year at St. Joseph’s. The book also contained individual students’ poems.
Pilgrims can visit St. Joseph Basilica:
Weekdays – 6 a.m.-3 p.m. (except Thursdays)
Saturdays – 6:30 a.m.-5 p.m.
Sundays – 6:30 a.m.-12 noon
For more details about Masses, devotions and parish activities see parish.stjosephwebster.com/jubilee-year.
To schedule a private or group visit, contact the office at rectory@saintjosephbasilica.com or 508-943-0467.