WINONA, Minn. – A Catholic priest with a larger than life presence in Winona’s Polish community, Paul Joseph Breza, has died at age 87. He was born in Winona, the son of descendants of Kashubian immigrants from Bytów, Poland. He established the Polish Cultural Institute and Museum in Winona in 1979. He visited Bytów in the 1980s and 1990s — and in 2004 arranged an enduring a sister-city relationship between Winona and Bytów. In 2006 Bytów celebrated its first annual Winona Day exchange program. It was Breza’s work that led to Winona being recognuzed as the “Kashubian Capital of America” in homage to waves of Polish immigrants beginning 1898.
Career milestones
Breza. 1937-2025
Breza was educated at St. Stanislaus. School on the historically Polish East Side. He moved on to Cutter High School and Saint Mary’s College. After seminary studies he was ordained in 1963 and assigned to the Winona Diocese. During nearly 50 years of active ministry h held dut8es as pastor, chaplain, teacher, and administrator. In his retirement, he continued to fill in for other priests as needed. He also was the diocesan archivist.
Kashubian heritage
He created the Polish Cultural Institute and Museum in 1979 min a former lumberyard office at 102 Liberty Street he had purchased two years earlier. His parishioners recognized him regularly. In 2007 Cotter High School, named him its third Alumnus of the Year.”[9] In 2008 the city of Bytów recognized him with the title “Honorary Citizen of Bytów. In 2010, Father Breza was inducted into Winona’s Polish Heritage Hall of Fame. In 2013, in a ceremony at the Polish Museum, the Polish consul general in Chicago, = Paulina Kapuscinska, presented Father Breza with the Cavalier’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland for his contribution to Polish American relations. In 2013, with representatives from Bytów in attendance, he celebrated the 50th anniversary of his ordination with a special Mass.
Bricks and mortar. Breza’s pet project now known as the Kashubian Cultural Institute and Polish Museum.
An irony
On the day Breza died, his beloved St. Stan’s parish school was being torn down. The school was abandoned in 2023 in the constriction of Catholic parochial education.