[A note in Father Lukasz Kruszewski's private drawer at the rectory of St. Casimir's. Polish, rendered in English translation. Dated 11 February 1924. Not made public in any form.]
A private note, to be kept only by me, for the guidance of my pastoring this parish.
I have this week concluded the review of Father Jarzembek's general pastoral notebooks, which under the traditional practice I may read for the understanding of the parish though I may not touch the seal of confession. I have found the books orderly, scrupulous, and — on one matter — troubling.
Father Jarzembek kept, from 1901 onward, a small loose-leaf file he labelled "Sprawy parafii, nie spowiedzi" — "Matters of the Parish, not of Confession." This was his file of pastoral concerns he was working to resolve. It was not under the seal. It records, for instance, a dispute between two altar-guild women over the Easter lily arrangement in 1909, a difficulty with a parish school teacher's health in 1915, the long matter of a broken belltower ladder that took three years to replace. The file is honest and it is dull, in the way a good pastor's concerns are dull.
The last entries in the file, from 7 September 1923 onward, are of a different character. They concern Mr. T.W., a vestry member whose name I do not here write in full for reasons of pastoral charity. Father had formed — I must state this plainly, for my own guidance — a concluded judgment that Mr. T.W. had been diverting parish funds to his private use, at least since 1920 and probably since 1919. Father had collaborated with Mr. P.K., a lay parishioner of known integrity, in the compilation of a comparative reconstruction that I have now seen. The arithmetic is unambiguous. The pattern is sustained over four years. The sum approaches one thousand four hundred dollars.
Father intended, on the evening of the 14th of October, to go to Mr. T.W. alone, in the manner of Matthew 18, and to give him the opportunity to hear, to confess, and to make restitution, with Father's protection of Mr. T.W.'s name so far as the good of the parish could permit.
Father Jarzembek died that evening.
I note also, for my own guidance and not for any further disposition: Mrs. E.M., the Sodality president who has faithfully remitted these sums to the vestry, came to me on the 4th of February on a pretext concerning the Lenten schedule, and in the course of our conversation asked me — twice — whether I had "reviewed Father's notebooks." She did not ask further. She is a woman who does not speak without purpose. I believe she has her own suspicions, and has had them since before Father's death, and is quietly waiting to know what I will do.
What I will do, I have decided, is this:
- I will not reopen with the civil authorities. The case is closed; Father's death was adjudicated an accident; I cannot without strong and public evidence overturn that adjudication, and I do not possess public evidence.
- I will confront Mr. T.W. privately, as Father intended to do, within the next six weeks. I will not accuse him of harm to Father's person — I have no evidence of that and it is not my office to adjudicate it. I will present him with the comparative reconstruction and I will require restitution over five years to the parish with the Bishop's concurrence. He will not be prosecuted in ecclesiastical court if he complies. He will be quietly removed from the vestry. That is the limit of my authority and I will not exceed it.
- I will trust the Lord to decide, in His time, the other question.
- I will pray for Father Jarzembek, for Mr. T.W., for Mrs. E.M., and for myself, that I will not fail in my portion of this procedure as Father did not fail in his.
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
— L. Kruszewski, pastor, St. Casimir's. 11 February 1924.
[addendum, dated 8 April 1924:]
Mr. T.W. has agreed to the terms. Restitution has begun. He has stepped off the vestry under the pretext of "family demands upon his time." He has not left the parish. His wife, whose name is on the mortgage he has recently paid down, does not know. I have asked Mr. P.K. to return Father's working papers to me, which he has done, and which I have not destroyed. They are in this drawer with this note. The Lord will decide the balance of the matter. — L.K.