An Unlikely Don Quixote

Monsignor Frank Furzaj is on a modern-day mission

by Ron Aaron Eisenberg

Although he bears no resemblance to the mythical Don Quixote, Rev. Monsignor Frank Kurzaj, pastor of St. Paul’s Catholic Church on Sutton Street in San Antonio, is no less a knight-errant.

Dressed in a knit sweater and black slacks, a hint of his clerical collar showing, he looks more like a college professor than a radical priest.

But in the late 1980s, Father Frank took on some of the largest uranium mining and processing companies in the world on behalf of the people of Panna Maria, Texas. He thought they’d been mislead by corporate claims that uranium mining and dumping was safe, despite the cancers and birth defects he was seeing among his parishioners.

He says he knows about pollution. “I’m from Silesia, in Southern Poland, which is one of the most polluted places in the world.” What he saw happening in Panna Maria troubled him deeply.

He stood tall for his flock then.

And if the South Texas Project Nuclear Complex takes wing, Msgr. Kurzaj is prepared to resume the battle to assure protections for the families who live in and around the mines and dump sites some 50 miles south of San Antonio.

He knows that building new nuclear reactors in Texas could make uranium mining and processing profitable once again. And there is plenty of uranium waiting to be mined in South Texas. The need to dump “hot” waste would also come with renewed mining and processing.

He laughs as he recalls how corporate executives tried unsuccessfully to pressure Archbishop Flores to remove him from his Panna Maria parish back then. “The Archbishop simply encouraged me to keep on doing what I was doing,” he says.

He quickly adds that he is not anti-mining. Nor is he anti-nuclear. He just wants the strictest safety precautions to be set and followed to protect the environment―people, livestock, plants and wildlife.

Father Frank came to America from his native Poland in November 1986 thanks to Archbishop of San Antonio Patrick Flores. Flores had asked for a priest who could connect with people of Polish descent who were living in Texas. Msgr. Kurzaj’s archbishop in the Silesian region of Southern Poland, where Father Frank grew up, encouraged him to go to America. And so he did.

Father Frank spoke no English when he arrived in the U.S. But in his initial church in Castroville and later at the Immaculate Conception Church in Panna Maria, many of his parishioners spoke Polish. He felt at home in those communities. And for good reason.

According to the Texas State Historical Association, Panna Maria is widely regarded as the oldest permanent Polish settlement in America and home of the nation's oldest Polish church.

Father Frank knew he needed to learn to speak and write English. He did so by taking ESL (English as a Second Language) classes at San Antonio College. And today, although his Polish accent remains, his English is excellent. Thanks to his move to St. Paul’s Catholic Church on San Antonio’s west side, he is also learning Spanish, with a little help from MACC (Mexican American Catholic College and SAC).

Father Frank sees his primary job as being pastor of St. Paul’s. But he works tirelessly to reestablish connections between Texas and Poland. He is one of the founders of the Father Leopold Moczybemba Foundation (www.flmfoundation.org) which honors the memory of Fr. Leopold Moczybemba, a priest who came to Texas in 1852 and encouraged hundreds of Silesians to come to Texas. They did; in large numbers.

Since 1989, Msgr. Frank has taken parishioners and others on annual trips to Poland and other places in Europe. Those tours always include a visit to Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp, because he wants people to know about evil. He pays for his own airfare and lodging.

“Some people tell me I’m crazy to continue leading trips back to Poland. But I tell them I am from Poland. I am Silesian. I am a Catholic priest. And I want people to know who they are by building cultural bridges.”

This summer he is leading a trip to Israel and then on to Poland.

In 1995 at the Institute of Texan Cultures, Father Frank was sworn in as a U.S. Citizen. “Why did I want to become an American citizen? Because, as an American I have more credibility to fight for freedom.”

That’s how he sees what he did in Panna Maria in challenging Chevron and other corporate giants. He was fighting for freedom for his parishioners who were put at risk by uranium mining and dumping. And there is little doubt he would do it again.

Father Frank is hesitant to talk about his ties to the late Pope John Paul II, who was also Polish. But he acknowledges that he knew him and met him on several occasions before and after he became pope. He also served on the committee that welcomed Pope John Paul to San Antonio in 1987.

He is not, however, shy about telling stories about himself.

He recalled how shortly after he arrived in Castroville, “I was asked to bless the crops and especially the tomatoes that are grown by local farmers.

“I did the blessing. And that night the temperature dropped to twenty degrees. There wasn’t a tomato left in all of Castroville.”

As he tells the story his hands never stop moving. And one gets the sense that his mind never stops either. Unlike Don Quixote, Father Frank’s windmills are real.

Ron Aaron Eisenberg is a marketing consultant, former radio talk show host, and professor of political science at The University of Texas at San Antonio. He is married to Gina Galaviz Eisenberg. He has three sons. Two cats. And a Labrador.