On 108th anniversary, St. Adalbert’s parishioners challenge removal of La Pieta sculpture from shuttered Pilsen church: ‘I really think that God is here’

Rain started pouring and plastic tablecloths flapped in the wind as the women said their prayers, rosary in hand. First in Polish, then Spanish, then English.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death. Amen,” a chorus of voices said in sync with the woman leading the English prayer.

The weather didn’t deter about 50 parishioners and supporters Tuesday night from gathering to celebrate St. Adalbert’s 108th anniversary in the alley behind the church, just as it hasn’t deterred them from praying outside since it closed in 2019, or from spending the last two weeks, 24/7 on rotating shifts, to help prevent a statue from being removed.

Since 2017, after parishioners learned St. Adalbert’s, at 1650 W. 17th St., would close, a group of them has been fighting to reopen St. Adalbert.

Their fight intensified just two weeks ago, when they learned workers were on site drilling through a back wall of the church to remove the statue of La Pieta, which depicts Mary sitting holding Jesus’ body on her lap after he’s brought down from the cross.

Since then, the group of about 25 parishioners has rotated shifts, making sure at least one person is always in the alley near the back gate leading to the partially drilled wall to prevent workers from completing the job.

On Tuesday evening, the group invited supporters and neighbors to celebrate St. Adalbert’s 108th anniversary. People shared flautas, Spanish rice and beans and a Polish soup while a man played the guitar and another sang in Spanish.

Around midnight, after the celebration ended and the group helped clean the area and pack up tables and chairs, Judy A. Vazquez stayed at the site, sleeping in an SUV. She’s done so six of the last 14 nights, and has spent a lot of her days there, visiting with other parishioners and neighbors.

“I really think that God is here,” Vazquez said.

Two weeks ago, Dalia Radecki, who lives behind St. Adalbert, heard a loud noise coming from the alley in the morning, she said. She walked out to a cloud of dust, and found workers drilling through the back wall to remove the statue.

Radecki called one of the parishioners and word spread among the St. Adalbert’s parishioners’ group, she said. They showed up to the site to protest the drilling and eventually police showed up and the workers left.

But the parishioners knew the workers would return, so they organized and decided they would stay on site day and night to stop them.

“It’s been an amazing community effort,” Vazquez said. “It’s been an eye opener because … this is uncharted territory.”

The next time the workers returned with a permit to continue drilling, Rosemarie Dominguez sat in front of the gate, refusing to move, she said.

“This has been a home for a lot of us, me especially,” Dominguez said on Tuesday. “I’ve been coming here since I was a fetus. My mom was part of the choir. My dad’s a deacon, he served this parish.”

Dominguez, 30, is one of the youngest in the group fighting for St. Adalbert to reopen. She sometimes works at the site, using hot spot and charging her laptop in Radecki’s home, she said.

Dominguez is the community engagement and housing organizer for The Resurrection Project, a nonprofit that works to promote peace and safety in Chicago’s Southwest Side by helping families find affordable housing and providing immigration legal services, among other services. St. Adalbert’s was one of six parishes that contributed seed money for The Resurrection Project in 1990.

“This is near and dear to my heart,” Dominguez said. “This is where my activism started.”

Their struggle with the statue began when the Archdiocese, in an emailed statement, said the replica of Michelangelo’s La Pieta statue was to be moved from St. Adelbert to St. Paul Catholic Church, about a mile southwest.

“Parishioners will have access to worship before and better enjoy the sculpture in its new home,” the statement said. “Moreover, this valued community treasure can be better safeguarded and preserved in an active parish church.”

The Archdiocese said a post has been up on the parish website since April 19 informing people of the statue’s removal.

“The parish has followed the proper permitting process and consulted with engineers who advised on the safest way to move the statue to its new home,” the statement said.

In 2016, the Archdiocese announced that St. Adalbert’s would close as part of a plan to consolidate the six Catholic Churches in the Pilsen neighborhood into three.

In that announcement, the Archdiocese cited the $2.5 million it would cost to repair St. Adalbert’s 185-foot bell towers and a decline of Mass attendance by about 2,000 people since the year 2000.

In October of 2020, the city moved to grant St. Adalbert official landmark status, but that process has since stalled.

Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th, who represents the Pilsen area, sponsored a city ordinance to reclassify zoning at the church’s location from residential to parks and open space district. That ordinance was deferred to a future city council meeting.

An Archdiocese document from August lists St. Adalbert’s for sale for $3.95 million.

Demetrio Reyes lives across the street from the church. It’s where he married his wife in 2007, where he attended Mass on Sundays and attended events and celebrations.

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“It’s your home,” he said in Spanish. “You find refuge there for your problems. You go to church to give thanks to God for your life. And then suddenly you learn it’ll close.”

Reyes said he’s found hope in seeing people continue to come together to pray, himself and his wife included.

“It’s incredible, the faith of the people,” he said.

Neighbors have been meeting in the church parking lot, on the West Side of the building, to pray daily since the first Sunday St. Adalbert closed in the summer of 2019. On Fridays, Polish parishioners join the group, and the St. Adalbert’s Spanish Polish Rosary Group prays the rosary in the three languages.

Additionally, on Sundays parishioners pray as a form of protest outside the Holy Name Cathedral, at 735 N. State St., where Cardinal Blase J. Cupich lives.

“We’re out here en la lucha (in the fight) saying OK, what’s going to happen next?” Vazquez said, adding that if they don’t organize, the Archdiocese and the Vatican will continue to shut down churches for profit.

“And if we don’t organize and really bring this to another level, the management of the Catholic religion will keep doing this.”