Christmas is for everyone says chaplain to Cork's Polish community

A CATHOLIC priest who works as a chaplain to Cork’s Polish community has said Christmas is a time to that God’s love extends to all people, regardless of who they are or from where they have come.

Father Kamil Bachara has been in Ireland since March 2018, working for over a year in Clonakilty before Bishop Fintan Gavin asked him to move closer to Cork city, to replace Fr Piotr Galus as co-ordinator of the chaplaincy to the Polish community in the diocese of Cork and Ross.

The Polish community in Cork and Ross numbered as many as 12,000 before the covid-19 pandemic saw some head home, but the numbers are still strong, and Fr Kamil works alongside Fr Rafal Zielonka in Mahon and Fr Bartlomiej Dziedzic in Bandon.

There are about 25 or 26 Polish chaplains on the island of Ireland, with approximately 15 Polish priests in non-diocesan orders.

“The Polish chaplaincy is more about people and not about the territory,” Fr Kamil told The Echo.

When the first Ukrainian refugees arrived here last year, Fr Kamil celebrated Easter Mass for them, but now the Ukrainian community has its own chaplain in Fr Roman Byletskyy in Fermoy, who says weekly Mass in Frankfield.

“We have a good Ukrainian community here, and there’s some activities for them organised by Ballincollig parish and we look after them as well.”

Fr Kamil said his “first job” is to serve as a curate in the family of parishes of Ballincollig, Ballinora, Ovens, and Farran. “We’ve got five churches to cover and three parishes, and there’s five priests and I’m one of them.”

He will have been four years in Ballincollig come February, arriving just before covid, and he says he was very lucky to have such ive friends and neighbours who made him feel welcome in his new home in Westcourt.

He tries to get home to Poland twice a year, and was most recently home in July to baptise his new niece. His mother ed away in 2015, and his father lives on his own so he likes to visit him. His father and sister and brother-in-law visited him in 2019, travelling around Ireland with him and seeing West Cork, Kinsale, the Cliffs of Moher, and Knock Shrine.

At 38, he is one of the youngest priests in a diocese where the average age for a priest is over 60, but his colleague Fr Ronan Sheehan is younger than him at 29.

This is not his first time working abroad. A few years after he was ordained, having first worked in a Polish parish, he was posted to Kazakhstan.

“I spent nearly three years working there, and it was a great experience for me to see the same Catholic Church in completely different circumstances, because Kazakhstan in Asia is a huge country, but it is a Muslim country and Catholics are only one or 2% of the population. Not like here or in Poland where most people are Catholic or culturally Catholic.”

Coming up to Christmas, which celebrates the birth of a refugee, The Echo asked Fr Kamil if he had any thoughts on those forced to flee war and oppression.

“Christmas is a very important time for every Christian, it is about love, about God who is love, and who came to the world to teach us how to love each other,” he said.

“No matter who you are, where you are from, you are a person, you have a dignity, you are a human being and you deserve love and respect, and peace in your heart,” Fr Kamil said. 

“In preparation for Christmas, I would pray for peace and for all those who look for peace, who are in the lack of peace.”