Kościół pw. Świętego Karola Boromeusza
Churches of Kraków
Church (Roman Catholic), Prądnik Biały district.
History
The Church of St Charles Borromeo stands on Zdrowa Street in Prądnik Biały. The parish community grew out of St Florian's parish, where Karol Wojtyła served as curate in 1949-1951. As early as the 1950s St Florian's parish was looking for a way to set up a pastoral centre near Prądnicka Street and Księdza Siemaszki Street. In 1954 Dr Karol Zakrzeński left it a plot of land for a new church in his will, but in 1957 the state authorities took it away. A chance to build only came at the end of the 1980s, and on 18 December 1988 Cardinal Franciszek Macharski agreed that the future church and parish would take St Charles Borromeo as their patron.
After Wojtyła was elected pope, the parishioners of St Florian's wanted to honour his two years of work in their community. Most people talked of a monument by the basilica, but the parish priest, Jan Czyrek, decided that a better memorial would be a church on the Księdza Siemaszki estate, a place of remembrance and prayer. Today the residents describe it as their monument of gratitude for the pontificate of John Paul II.
From 1 January 1989 Father Stanisław Czajka was in charge of the building work and pastoral care. First a temporary chapel was put up, and establishing who owned the land dragged on for eight years, because 34 people laid claim to it. The parish was established on 4 November 1991, on its patronal feast day. It was formed from three neighbouring parishes: St Florian, St Jadwiga the Queen and Jesus Christ the Good Shepherd. The building site was blessed on 7 May 1997. The foundation stone, taken from the walls of St Florian's Basilica, was blessed by John Paul II on 8 June of the same year on Kraków's Błonia meadows. Work on the church began in September 1999. Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz blessed the finished church on 4 November 2009.
The patron is Charles Borromeo, an Italian cardinal and Archbishop of Milan who lived from 1538 to 1584. He worked to implement the decrees of the Council of Trent in his archdiocese and in 1564 founded a major seminary in Milan. He also founded orphanages and shelters for the homeless, and when a smallpox epidemic broke out in 1577 he walked barefoot through the streets of the city at the head of a penitential procession.
Did you know?
When Cardinal Macharski laid the foundation stone on 12 October 2003, an ornamental brick from the door of St Peter's Basilica in Rome was also set into the wall. It comes from the Jubilee Year 2000 and was a gift from John Paul II to the parish.