St Joseph Sanctuary – Barefoot Carmelite Monastery

As in my teenage, boyhood years, in my spirit I wander to this place of special devotion to Our Lady of the Scapular which had such a great influence on the spirituality in Wadowice.

John Paul II
Wadowice, 16 June 1999

klasztor The Barefoot Carmelites arrived to Wadowice in 1892. Among them, there was St Rafał Kalinowski. The “na Górce” Monastery was built between 1897-1899. Currently, it comprises of the complex made of: the church, the monastery and the pilgrim house.

The St Joseph Church is a neo-Roman building with a nave and two aisles. The altars, the pulpit and the Stations of the Cross were made in Tirol. In the main altar, there is the painting of St Joseph. In 2004, Pope John Paul II provided St Joseph with a ring along with a Papal edict elevating the church to the rank of the sanctuary.

In the altar of Our Lady of the Scapular, there is a bust of Blessed Alfons Maria Mazurek along with his relics. Before this altar, little Karol Wojtyła was given his first scapular. Currently, the Papal scapular was placed in a golden rosette on the wall nearby. In the right aisle, there is an altar dedicated to St Rafał Kalinowski and the Infant Jesus of Prague.

At the monastery, there were the lower theological seminary and private grammar school employing many renowned teachers. The prefect of the seminary in the years 1920-30 was Blessed Alfons Maria Mazurek, the later prior of the monastery in Czerna, murdered by the Germans in 1944.

In 2011, the beatification process for Fr. Rudolf Warzecha, a monk from the monastery of Wadowice, was initiated. We may visit the chapel with an exhibition devoted to the Servant of God, Fr. Rudolf and the cell of St. Rafał.

Date of introduction: March 22, 2016