Nancy Beckley

Today I walked into a Catholic church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that could hold its own against the great basilicas of Rome. And the story behind it is almost as magnificent as the church itself. The Basilica of St. Josaphat was built by Polish Catholic immigrants, many of them working-class families who had come to America with little money but an extraordinary devotion to their faith. By the 1890s, their parish had grown to more than 12,000 souls. Their first church had burned down. Their second was too small. So they decided to build something astonishing. A church modeled after St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Their pastor, Father Wilhelm Grutza, learned that an enormous post office and customs building in Chicago was being demolished. He purchased it for $20,000, had it dismantled, and transported its materials to Milwaukee on FIVE HUNDRED railroad cars. Stone by stone, these Catholic immigrants built their own little piece of Rome. When the church was completed in 1901, its colossal dome was surpassed in size in America only by the dome of the U.S. Capitol. But they weren't finished. After years of sacrifice and debt, the church's interior was transformed with magnificent Austrian stained glass, soaring columns, elaborate ornamentation, and breathtaking sacred paintings. In 1929, Pope Pius XI elevated it to the dignity of a minor basilica—the first Polish-American church to receive that honor. And the result? One of the most magnificent Catholic churches in the United States. I have visited some of Europe's great churches, and this basilica genuinely rivals them in beauty and grandeur. But what moved me most wasn't the dome or the artwork. It was the people who built it. Ordinary Catholic families who understood something our age has largely forgotten: The house of God should lift man's eyes from earth to Heaven. They did built this for His glory. And more than 125 years later, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is still offered beneath that magnificent dome. Deo gratias. St. Josaphat, pray for us. 🇵🇱