MERRILLVILLE – When pilgrims arrive at the final stop of 2025 Piesza Polska Pielgrzymka Maryjna on Aug. 10, they will have the opportunity to welcome a Polish-native Australian bishop and say farewell to a superior who has served for more than a decade.
The spacious grounds of the Salvatorian Shrine will host the last leg of the 38th annual Polish Marian Walking Pilgrimage, where Sunday Mass caps off the 37-mile journey. Walkers will have completed their two-day trek from Chicago with stops at Hammond’s Harrison Park and the Carmelite Fathers Shrine in Munster.
Though the faith-in-the-public-square event has been a tradition for thousands of Chicago-area Catholics, especially among the Polish Diaspora, this year’s event is one of firsts and lasts. Bishop Robert J. McClory will be among the local clergymen welcoming the Most Reverend Karol Kulczycki, Bishop of Port Pirie, Australia. He is the first member of the Society of the Divine Savior to be ordained as a bishop.
The prelate from the Land Down Under is shepherd of an area at the bottom of the country-continent. His southern diocese, when compared on map overlays, is about the size of the state of Texas, though it does not have a dense population of Catholics like other areas of Australia.
Bishop Kulczycki communicated ahead of his preparations for the long flight to the United States, writing that he has found himself in a ministry that is unusual for a religious order priest, but has continued to focus on pastoral care and evangelization.
“Over the 30 years in my religious life, I have never thought about becoming a bishop,” wrote Bishop Kulczycki. “So, my appointment as the first Polish Salvatorian bishop not only acknowledges our commitment to serve local communities in Australia, but also brought recognition of Salvatorians to (the) broader Church. After all, this is one of the main priorities of Salvatorians that ‘all may know the Saviour.’”
Bishop Kulczycki has been to the U.S. previously, but this summer’s visit will be the first to the Chicagoland area and to the Salvatorian’s Our Lady of Czestochowa Shrine and the order’s house that was founded there in 1941.
He hopes to encourage the faithful to journey with the Blessed Mother, as one who helps connect people with her Son’s salvific ministry.
“We are often encouraged to pray with Mary or through Mary, but I would like to invite pilgrims to walk with Mary, who offers us a caring hand and guides us as a mother guides her child,” Bishop Kulczycki shared via email. “Pilgrimage is a journey to the source of our faith, to the first encounter with Jesus, who called each of us by name: ‘Come.’”
Father Mikolaj Markiewicz, SDS, affectionately known as “Father Nick” to local faithful, has been the superior of the Salvatorians in Merrillville since 2015. His responsibilities for pastoral and financial matters at the shrine will soon shift to a leadership position in his homeland of Poland. In late August, he will settle in Krakow for his new role as provincial vicar of his order.
During his decade of priestly service in the U.S., Father Markiewicz has welcomed Mass goers at Our Lady of Czestochowa, blessed Polish motorcyclists, and encouraged visitors to enjoy family and fraternal festivities in their hall, or pray along their serene trails. He has assisted as a presider at Diocese of Gary parishes and responded to sacramental calls.
“My feelings are very mixed,” said Father Markiewicz. “On the one side, I’m so excited to go back to Poland and to be vice provincial – that will (include many) more responsibilities than here. On the other side, I feel sad because I have spent 10 years here, and I really loved to be here, to serve at Our Lady of Czestochowa Shrine.”
Yet the Salvatorian mission translates into any culture, according to Father Markiewicz.
“Our ministry is always the same: to try to help people be more of God’s people, to be more involved in the Catholic Church,” he said. “My (new) position will be more administration, more visitation with the provincial fathers. But thinking about that as Salvatorians, it doesn’t matter where we serve; the goal is the same.”
The Sunday Mass that concludes the Piesza Polska Pielgrzymka Maryjna will be the first major public event in Merrillville for the man who will succeed Father Markiewicz, Father Ireniusz Bem, SDS, or “Father Irek.”
Father Bem was born in Wodzislaw, Poland, the eldest of four children whose father was a coal miner and mother was a homemaker. Inspired by a cousin who became a Salvatorian Father, a young adult Bem joined formation and was ordained a priest in 1987 in Mokolow, Poland.
After four years, he was called upon to serve a new community in Canada. There, Father Bem went on to three decades of pastoral service, first in the eastern part of the country, and most recently in Nanaimo, British Columbia.
Father Bem has a heart for mentoring and evangelizing and said he is eager to minister in Northwest Indiana. Outside of Poland, he has been a pastor to mainly English speakers. The qualities of Our Lady of Czestochowa – a shrine serving both diocesan faithful and Polonia – mirrors his experience.
“Belonging today is such an important thing,” Father Bem said, mentioning innovations he promoted at his assignments, such as helping people to their cars or holding umbrellas outside the church. “Showing hospitality from the moment people appear at the door of the church to the last moment they leave is very important.”
Already familiar with the animatronic Polish Panorama of the Millennium display and the "Saint John Paul II, The Pope who first…" exhibit at the Salvatorian Shrine in Merrillville, he also awaits the wave of predominantly Polish walkers who remind him of the march of Christians around the world.
“The pilgrimage creates some curiosity among the young generation and perhaps … a wake-up call for someone who had faith before and somehow neglected it,” explained Father Bem. “(It shows) that there is something more to life here than just running and trying to pay your bills. You never know how God touches other people.”
Pilgrims participating in the Polish Marian Walking Pilgrimage will arrive on Aug. 9 at the Carmelite Monastery in Munster, where Bishop Robert J. McClory will preside at an outdoor Mass at 9 p.m. After a morning trek to the Salvatorian Shrine in Merrillville on Aug. 10, walkers will join in Mass and fellowship starting at approximately 2 p.m.
Caption: Father Mikolaj Markiewicz, outgoing superior of the Salvatorian Fathers at Our Lady of Czestochowa Shrine, blesses motorcyclists and their bikes at the order’s campus in Merrillville on May 5, 2024. At the end of this month, the priest affectionately called “Father Nick” will return to his native Poland to work in an administrative capacity for his order. He served more than a decade in the Region, ministering to Polonia and Diocese of Gary faithful. (Anthony D. Alonzo photo)
