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nh Pone:"We awAWMWna loss=# United States Department of the Interior National Park Service *National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number A Pape R St. Casimir Parish Historic District St. Joseph County IN Szybowicz was ignored, and the diocese sent him to a parish in Oregon, perhaps, suggest some accounts, to get him out of the way. The Reverend W. T. Szalewski was then appointed. but he was met with such hostility that he resigned. By some accounts, the Church, angered by the insubordination of the persistent petitioners who continued to demand Father Szybowicz and none other, removed the Holy Sacraments from the church in early November. Other accounts simply have that the Church ignored the petitioners and St. Casimir's was, by default, left without a priest for over two months. In mid—January. 1914, the bishop appointed Father Stanislaus Gruza pastor of St. Casimir's. When Gruza tried to occupy the rectory a week later, a group of parishioners refused to let him enter. Subsequent efforts over the next few days met with similar results. The bishop, who • throughout the months of friction had adamantly refused either to come to the parish or meet with the petitioners. now resorted to legal action. A restraining order was brought against the parishioners who blocked Gruza's entrance to the rectory. The injunction, issued 7 February, demanded that the keys to the church and rectory and the financial records of the parish be surrendered to Gruza or to the bishop. If this was not to be -accomplished voluntarily, police would be present to guard the property and the priest. On Sunday, 15 February 1914, Father Gruza came to St. Casimir's surrounded by a cordon of police. Some accounts indicate that the priest actually said mass in the church while an ominous crowd assembled on the parish grounds. Others say the priest was halted by the mob as he was being driven toward the church. and his driver was badly injured in the fray. He was able to escape with the aid of the police, but there were many injuries on both sides and a crowd of parishioners, possibly a group of women from the church's Rosary Society, stormed the rectory. taking furnishings and supplies that they maintained they themselves had purchased (as indeed, they had). Again. accounts differ drastically. but within a few weeks passions had cooled sufficiently for Gruza to take up his duties sometime in March. The leaders of the riot were arrested and prosecuted fairly quickly, and more than a few parishioners from St. Casimir's were moved to join the fledgling Polish National Church. Father Gruza . left St. Casimir's after little more than a year. replaced by Father Stanislaus Gorka, who oversaw the construction and dedication of the new church ten years later.