Holy janitor's humble abode
crumbles to dust

Brother Anthony Kowalczyk

According to local legend, Brother Anthony Kowalczyk was found battered and covered in blood in his CollSge Saint-Jean room one day in 1945. Sitting on the edge of his bed, "his face was bruised and swollen, his eyes blackened and bloodshot," wrote Father P.J. Klita in a short history of Kowalczyk.

The oblate brother later revealed he'd been fighting with the devil all night. He was never the same man after this traumatic confrontation, or so the story goes, and his health slowly declined until he died two years later.

Now the scene of that famous legend must give way to progress as the residence at Facult‚ Saint-Jean undergoes extensive renovations beginning this month. Brother Anthony's room will be knocked down to build a new $7.5-million residence complex. An exhibit on his life will then be created in a new museum to be housed in the residence.

Chances are, however, Kowalczyck would have understood the desecration of his living space. As "blacksmith, stoker, laundryman, gardener, caretaker of the poultry and animals, bell ringer and sacristan" at CollŠge Saint-Jean for more than 35 years, he was devoted not only to the Virgin Mary but also to the students who lived in his care. Under review since 1952 for canonization by the Vatican, the brother is remembered by Edmonton Catholics for his kindness, humor and warmth. To those who knew him, this plain and ordinary man was the very definition of piety.

"I used to cut his hair," says Father Tony Joseph Alfred, who knew the brother at the college for more than 25 years and now leads the movement to raise his profile in Rome. Needless to say, says Father Tony, Kowalczyk was a "very saintly man.he had a natural honesty about him. His charity was the most outstanding of all his virtues."

Born in Poland in 1866, Kowalczyk joined the oblate order at the age of 25. He emigrated to Alberta in 1896, the first Polish oblate to work in Canada, and spent 15 years working with the M‚tis near St. Paul as a gardener and handyman. He lost his hand in a sawing accident not long after his arrival but managed to perform impressive feats of manual labor despite the disability.

After some years at Lac La Biche, he arrived at CollŠge Saint-Jean in 1921. Dr. Frank McMahon, an instructor at Facult‚ Saint-Jean, recalls meeting the brother when he was five or six years old. Kawalczyk had a hook to replace his lost hand and used to have fun teasing kids with it but it was clearly all in jest, says McMahon.

"He was very warm. I remember him as being someone I would be comfortable with. He tried to scare me with his arm but you could see from the twinkle in his eye that he was just teasing."

McMahon says Kowalczyk was "always praying" to the Virgin, building a distinctive grotto in her honor with rocks from the nearby Mill Creek ravine. He also had a reputation for working small miracles at the college. After he had prayed, for instance, lost objects would reappear and broken watering systems would suddenly start working again.

Today's students living in residence are understandably interested in some of the more sensational elements of Kowalczyk's life, says McMahon, particularly his infamous fight with the devil. "The students love reading about it," he says. "It makes for something that's a lot less mundane." And from year to year, depending on how much imagination the students have, rumors circulate about hauntings. But while such myth-making is only natural, McMahon has mixed feelings about its value.

"I find that it tends to distract from the reality of someone who was a very spiritual person and who functioned well as a kind of spiritual ancestor for people," he says. "I don't think these spectacular things are particularly important."

Kowalczyk's spiritual status has faired well, however, especially since attracting the attention of the current Pope, a compatriot, who recommended the Sacred Congregation for Canonizations advance him to the next step for beatification in 1979. The Vatican has an open file on Kowalczyk but sainthood continues to elude him, at least until he performs a couple of true, life-saving miracles requiring medical proof and several levels of rigorous church scrutiny. In fact, a rotating team of 60 doctors and scientists must declare there is no reasonable medical explanation for the event in question.

Father Tony says there are a number of "favors" on record, or reports of Kowalczyk interceding to cure various illnesses, but nothing that counts as miraculous.

They check these miracles out very assiduously and make sure there's no room for anybody to question the validity of what they're saying," says McMahon, pointing out the process is also political since the chances of a miracle happening are clearly tied to name recognition. And for that, you need considerable support here on earth. Even Mother Teresa has yet to pass the test.

"Religious orders tend to be very much on the decline now. They've lost a lot of influence," says McMahon. "These sorts of things aren't terribly popular any more, so I'm not sure just how much clout is still being exercised."