Father Benedict’s Fight For St. John the Baptist Church

A smallish foreigner, Bolsheviks, moonshiners and Black Hand death threats

Jerry Banik, May 2025

In 1897, Benedict Rajcany, simply known by most as “Father Benedict,” was a young, Roman Catholic priest brought from the Slovak region of Austria-Hungary to establish a parish to serve Whiting’s growing Slovak population.  Years later, the official history of St. John the Baptist’s parish described his arrival, as he got off the train in Whiting for the first time.  He was “a smallish, foreign-looking man in a dark suit, clutching nervously at a strange suitcase.  He seemed like someone who had run away from home...and who wondered where the Indians were.”  Yet, by the time he retired years later, he had established a large, thriving Catholic parish with a church, a school, a rectory for its priests and a convent for its nuns.  A newspaper account referred to St. John’s as “one of the richest foreign parishes in Northern Indiana.”

In the spring of 1922, however, Father Benedict struggled through a tempest that threatened to end his pastorship and forever change St. John’s.

The diocesan Bishop in Fort Wayne had sent Reverend Joseph Zalibera to fill in for Fr. Benedict, who was on a six month leave of absence for his health.  On Rev. Zalibera’s watch, dissension smoldered in the parish over Fr. Benedict’s long insistence that St. John’s school children be taught to read and write in English, not Slovak.  Rev. Zalibera, who spoke fluent Slovak, didn’t concur with Fr. Benedict’s English language philosophy and the rapid Americanization of St. John’s more than 700 students.  He maintained that the Slovak language and culture were being neglected, and that the parish was being led by an unbusinesslike pastor whose methods and finances needed to be investigated.

After returning from his leave of absence, Fr. Benedict claimed the dissension was the result of Zalibera’s ambitions and lack of scruples.  He called his detractors Bolsheviks and moonshiners.  He asserted that Zalibera wanted to not only reinstate Slovak language and music, but also wanted to remove the school’s Sisters of Providence, who were mostly of German and Irish heritage, replacing them with Slovak nuns.  Fr. Benedict became the object of severe criticism, and a movement was soon under way to have him removed from St. John’s pastorship.

But soon Fr. Benedict received two handwritten letters, one mailed in Chicago, one in Whiting.  The Whiting letter, written in Slovak, said,  “It would be better for you to disappear from here because death is certain unless you go.  Well my friend, this is my last goodbye to you.  Farewell to you anyway.”

The Chicago letter had a black hand, drawn in ink, and read in part,  “Benedict Rajcany, both I and my society are very strong.  You will be killed in a short time.  But you won’t know when.  I will kill you sure.  P.S. I am an Italian.”  Curiously, that “Italian” letter was also written in Slovak.

The little priest defied the threats, saying “It is the children in my school that I care about.  They must be reared as Americans, not as a mixture of the worst in several nationalities.”  According to the Lake County Times, “scores of friends, many with tears in their eyes and fear for Fr. Rajcany’s life, besieged St. John’s rectory to congratulate him on his fearless stand.”

Fr. Benedict said that some of what was written in the letters made it obvious who wrote them, and that he was certain the plot was conceived in a secret meeting held on Fred Street the prior week, adding that he was not afraid to die.

The letters were turned over to Hammond’s Chief of Police, Emil Bunde, and state and federal officials began searching for the authors of the “Black Hand” letters.  Fr. Benedict told them that each letter was written in a dialect found only in different parts of old Austria-Hungary, and used phrases common only to each part.  Claiming an almost categorical knowledge of his parishioners, he said that this information would lead them to the writers.  Authorities soon identified and found the suspects.

Whiting and Robertsdale’s foreign population was said to be in an uproar, and was divided in its support of Fr. Benedict.

In those days it was neither uncommon nor illegal for some parochial schools, like the Polish parishes of St. Casimir’s in North Hammond, St. Adalbert’s in Robertsdale and others to teach students the “mother tongue” of the old country.  The law, though, forbade doing so during regular school hours.  The City of Hammond conducted a survey of parochial schools in “foreign districts,” and it revealed that all, including St. John’s, were in compliance with state laws regarding English language teaching requirements.

The dissenters at St. John’s wrote an extensive letter to The Times presenting their side of the dispute.  Among their arguments, they claimed they were patriotic Americans with no pro-German or pro-Hungarian ties, they never wanted the Slovak language taught during school hours, they had been giving funds to the parish for a fine, new church, but Zalibera discovered that the parish was deep in debt with very little money on hand, and that their contributions to the parish were used by Fr. Benedict to buy valuable properties, naming himself as the owner.

In March, Fr. Benedict received a letter of support from Indiana Governor Warren McCray, who wrote that he would see to it that the Lake County prosecutor would take action if anyone at St. John’s did not respect the laws regarding teaching school subjects in English.  In April, some 500 friends and parishioners crowded Whiting’s Slovak Dom to celebrate Fr. Benedict’s 25 years as St. John’s pastor, while, it was reported, members of the group that sought to oust him “thumped and pounded in the room below the banquet hall.”  By May, the bishop of the diocese, Herman Alerding, had sent a letter expressing complete vindication for Fr. Benedict.  Also that month, the St. John trustees published and attested to a report of their full financial audit, finding nothing irregular in the accounts, adding there never was any serious dissension in the parish, “except for the futile attempts of the recalcitrants to oust him for purely selfish and personal reasons.”

The following year a parishioner purchased a one block tract in Whiting between John and Fred streets, and Schrage and White Oak Avenues.  There, with the stated intention of maintaining the Slovak culture and language, the new Immaculate Conception church and school was built, splitting off from St. John’s.

In 1937, while returning on a train from Whiting to his retirement home in Florida, Fr. Benedict was stricken with a heart attack and died.

He was 68. 

His body was interred “in the shadow of a large cross erected in the middle of St. John’s cemetery in Hammond.  Lake County residents claimed that this was the biggest funeral they had ever witnessed.”

In St. John’s Parish History we’re told that when the rebellion had finally ended, “Fr. Rajcany insisted on mercy instead of justice and would have nothing to do with prosecuting the guilty.”