Father Joseph Dabrowski

Born in Poland in 1842, Father Joseph Dabrowski-22, was ordained a priest in Rome in 1869 and assigned to a Polish ministry in the state of Wisconsin in the United States, first in Green Bay, then in Polonia. 

About the condition of Polish immigrants in his parish, Father Dabrowski wrote, “Our Poles live without Mass, without a sermon, without learning….” 

At Father's request, five Felician Sisters arrived from Krakow in 1874 to assist him in his ministry. The sisters established a school, but also opened an orphanage and a novitiate when membership in their Congregation quickly took root. The Felician Sisters would multiply in numbers and carry out Father Dabrowski's ministry work far beyond his lifetime.

As the chaplain of the Felician Sisters, Father Dabrowski led the aspirancy and relocated with the sisters to Detroit. A builder, a teacher, and a scientist, he had a special interest in electromechanics, technical inventions, mathematics, and technology. To educate his parishioners and students, he developed books and printed them on a printing press he had purchased. He taught the sisters how to make ink, use the press, and bind the books. 

Father Dabrowski also cared for indigenous people, hundreds of whom he baptized. He learned their language and published a dictionary. 

To attain the best education for Polish youth, Father Dabrowski prepared Felician teaching sisters by providing them with educators from the clergy in Rome and lay teachers from American universities. Every teaching sister successfully passed her diocesan school exam established by the Third Baltimore Synod in 1887, and again before the state commission in Michigan in 1892.

In 1885, Father Dabrowski founded the SS Cyril and Methodius Seminary in Orchard Lake, Michigan, the only Polish theological seminary in the United States.