Italian heart beats within Polish-born priest

Among the many champions of the Italian community in Chicago is the Rev. Stan Czarnecki, a Polish-born Jesuit priest who fell in love with Italy after living in Palermo and Rome as a young adult.

Czarnecki, who speaks Italian fluently, celebrates Mass in Italian on a regular basis at St. William Church and St. Francis Borgia Church in Chicago, and occasionally at Casa Italia in suburban Stone Park.

“Whenever there is a request, I go,” he says. He also does bilingual masses, alternating readings in English and Italian, and giving parts of homilies in both languages.

Czarnecki has been working for eight years at Loyola Academy in Wilmette — the largest Jesuit high school in the country — where he is in charge of pastoral work and youth ministry. He lives in a Jesuit community in nearby Evanston.

Born and raised in Stalowa Wola, Poland, Czarnecki loved academics, sports and music as a child, and especially loved playing the guitar, which he’s still passionate about. He entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1986, after high school, and later obtained a master’s degree in theology.

His first time in Italy was in 1991, at age 24, when he was assigned to teach religion and theology for two years at Istituto Gonzaga, a Jesuit high school in Palermo, Sicily. He’d taken Italian language classes in Poland, and perfected his skills in Palermo by taking private lessons from a retired teacher who introduced him to Italian literature and poetry. He also traveled throughout the country with students, visiting places such as Florence, Rome, Naples, Bari, Reggio Calabria, Assisi and the Dolomite Mountains.

That experience made him fall in love with Italy’s people, culture and traditions, Czarnecki says.

“In Southern Italy, especially, everyone is very friendly, and I also learned a bit of the Sicilian (dialect),” he says. “I love Italian food. My favorite is frutti di mare (seafood) and all kinds of pasta. I learned how to cook the best carbonara and also pasta with aglio, olio e peperoncino. I used to say I can eat pasta all day long, but for breakfast.”

Czarnecki also lived in Rome from 1996 to 1999 to study at Pontifical Salesian University. After his ordination in 1997 — which took place in Poland — Czarnecki graduated with a Licentiate in Sacred Theology degree and went back to Poland to serve as formation director for two years before moving to Chicago in 2001.

In Chicago, Czarnecki has served the Polish community in a variety of capacities, including as superior for the Polish Jesuit Community, rector of the Shrine of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and director of the Jesuit Millennium Center.

Over time, he also became deeply connected to the local Italian community, he says.

“Slowly, I realized and discovered that Chicago also has a big, big Italian community. Maybe not in one place, but spread in different parishes and through different events, like the Columbus Day Parade,” he says.

He began to occasionally celebrate Mass in Italian at St. Francis Borgia Church and Casa Italia and in 2014 was sent to minister at St. William Parish in Chicago, where he met members of the San Rocco di Potenza Society. He also became connected to members of the Maria Santissima Lauretana Society of Altavilla Milicia in Chicago and met the Rev. Augusto Feccia, a well-known champion of Chicago’s Italian and Italian American community who served as spiritual director for Casa Italia. Over the years, Czarnecki gradually took over masses in Italian as Feccia stepped back from his public duties.

Czarnecki says he admires the Italian community for having the drive to preserve its native heritage, and hopes those efforts will continue as time goes on.

“Younger Italian Americans don’t speak fluent Italian, but the older people do. For example, they have a wish to have a funeral Mass in their mother language,” he says. “The older generation keeps more connected with Italian culture, but the younger generation is losing it. This is the same thing I see with Polish Americans.”

Despite having lived in the United States for 23 years, Czarnecki says he feels more connected to Italy than his ancestral home.

“I was born and raised in Poland, but Italian is my second language. And it’s not only the language — I still have connections with Italians in Italy, and I have many Italian American friends in Chicago,” he says. “Part of my heart is Italian.”