BTW do other ethnic parishes put signs out? My parish is a Black Catholic parish, we also have people of other ethnicities; however, out liturgy (especially music) reflects our African-American heritage.
We even have the Lead Me Guide Me the African-American Catholic Hymnal
Some do, some don’t. It all depends upon the individual parish. Some will “publicize” it more than others.
There is a difference though between an “ethnic parish” and a “parish with ethnicity.” I’ll explain.
An “ethnic parish” is one which is non-territorial, but has been established specifically to serve the spiritual needs of a particular nationality. A Catholic is a member of a given parish, bases upon where he lives; parishes are territorial, just as someone in the United States is a resident of a particular state based on where he lives in relation to the state-lines. On the other hand, ethnic parishes are established for a particular nationality, and although they might also have territorial boundaries, they might overlap each other, and/or overlap territorial parishes (which is usually the case).
That’s a long way of saying that a parish can’t be both a territorial one (which is the norm), and an “ethnic parish” (which is the exception) at the same time. A territorial parish might very well have a majority of parishioners who are of a particular (or several similar) heritage, and that may be an important part of the parish life, but it’s still not an “ethnic parish” unless it was established specifically to be such.
To use the topic of this thread, a parish can only call itself a “Polish Catholic Church” if it was established as a parish to specifically serve people of Polish heritage.
If, on the other hand, it is a territorial parish (which all parishes are, unless they’re established otherwise), which just happens to be attended by people who are Polish (even if that is 100%), it would not be an ethnic parish. That’s what I meant in the beginning. We might call that a parish with an ethnicity, but it wouldn’t be an “ethnic parish.”
In recent years in the US, many European ethnic parishes have been closed, merged with neighboring parishes, or made into territorial parishes. Some still unofficially retain the name. St. Kasimir Polish Parish might have become St. Kasimir Parish a few years ago, and the designation was removed from the parish letterhead, bulletin, etc. but the name still appears on the church building carved into the stone (maybe even in Polish), and people might still call it “the Polish church” even though it’s no longer technically (canonically) an ethnic parish.
