The history of the immigration of the Poles to the United States and ofthe communities they created here has yet to receive a serious, comprehensive study, This lacuna is particularly visible in the history of the Roman catholic church in the United States, an institution to which overninety percent of the Polish immigrants belonged, indeed centered theirlives around. This biography of the Right, Reverend Monsignor LucyanBojnowski of Sacred Heart of Jesus Church, New Britain, Connecticutis an effort to fill one small but significant part of that lacuna.The life of Monsignor Bdjnowski, however, possesses a significancefar greater than this. Faced with the challenge of a new, often hostile environment, the poor, illiteate, disoriented Polish peasant immigrantlooked to an "intelligentsia" to lead him, first to honorable status withinthe Church, then to middle class respectability in American society. Someof the representatives of this "intelligentsia," unknown thus far even tospecialists of American ethnic studies, performed near-herculean feats intheir efforts to help the Pole in American society achieve a viable community within the larger American community.

The history of the immigration of the Poles to the United States and ofthe communities they created here has yet to receive a serious, comprehensive study, This lacuna is particularly visible in the history of the Roman catholic church in the United States, an institution to which overninety percent of the Polish immigrants belonged, indeed centered theirlives around. This biography of the Right, Reverend Monsignor LucyanBojnowski of Sacred Heart of Jesus Church, New Britain, Connecticutis an effort to fill one small but significant part of that lacuna.The life of Monsignor Bdjnowski, however, possesses a significancefar greater than this. Faced with the challenge of a new, often hostile environment, the poor, illiteate, disoriented Polish peasant immigrantlooked to an "intelligentsia" to lead him, first to honorable status withinthe Church, then to middle class respectability in American society. Someof the representatives of this "intelligentsia," unknown thus far even tospecialists of American ethnic studies, performed near-herculean feats intheir efforts to help the Pole in American society achieve a viable community within the larger American community.