CHICAGO (LifeSiteNews) — A Polish-American woman was arrested Tuesday after refusing to leave a Chicago Catholic Church recently known to be slated for sale to the venue host of a simulated orgy. She was upset about the removal of stained glass from the church after it had been given preliminary landmark status.

Władzia Domaradzka, who attended Mass weekly at the historic St. Adalbert’s Church before it closed in 2019, wanted to “confront” workers, who she said were removing stained-glass windows, and let them know they shouldn’t “destroy this church, because there is a landmark,” her friend, Izabella Sadowska, told Fox32 Chicago. 

Domaradzka refused to exit the church, and when the police were called and she defied several more orders, she was arrested. According to a source known to LifeSiteNews, she was released from the police station the same evening.

The preliminary landmark status referred to by Sadowska was granted to the church on Monday by a unanimous vote of the Chicago Landmark Commission. The meeting, attended by hundreds of locals who emotionally implored the preservation of St. Adalbert’s, was prompted by the Archdiocese of Chicago’s removal of the church’s stained-glass windows, which disturbed community members fervently attached to the church. 

Concerns remain that the stained-glass window removal, as well as the removal of other fixtures in the church, are a precondition for the sale of the church to Dan Davidson, whose Miami-based flagship venue, (Warning: graphic content) The Temple House, has been the site of lewd performances, including a simulated homoerotic orgy in 2019 featuring pop star Madonna’s daughter Lourdes. 

While the preliminary landmark and potential final landmark status do not mandate that the church’s interior features be preserved, they do require the preservation of all external elements, including windows. In St. Adalbert’s case, the stained-glass windows depict Catholic saints.  

Peter Strazzabosco, deputy commissioner of the Chicago Department of Planning and Development, confirmed to LifeSiteNews that windows may not be removed from a building while a landmark designation is pending, that is, after a preliminary landmark designation.

Strazzabosco maintains that only “removable fixtures” were being evacuated on Tuesday after the preliminary landmark designation, and “not windows.”

However, multiple accounts suggest otherwise. Dalia Radecki, a retired teacher of over 30 years with City of Chicago public schools, told LifeSiteNews that on Tuesday, members of a work crew at St. Adalbert’s told her they were continuing to remove stained glass.

Radecki said that when she told the workers about the new landmark status, they told her they knew nothing about it and were there to finish the work they had begun.

The police and media were called and arrived on the scene. According to church supporters on site at the time, a Department of Buildings representative who came to the church to review the situation told police and the onsite work crew that what was happening in the church was acceptable.

Radecki told LifeSiteNews that she spoke to a worker again on Friday in Spanish, asking him if he was still removing windows from the church wall on Tuesday, when Domaradzka was present. He told her “yes.”

Moreover, in response to news of Domaradzka’s arrest, the Archdiocese of Chicago appeared to concede to Fox32 Chicago on Tuesday that stained-glass windows continued to be removed from St. Adalbert’s for their “protection” from vandalism, claiming that the landmark designation did not prohibit their removal.

“The parish is completing work it started a week ago to protect the property and the sacred items in the church which were being repeatedly vandalized and destroyed. The need to protect the items was reinforced as the church was broken into again today. The preliminary landmark status vote by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks does not affect the efforts of St. Paul Parish to protect these items,” the archdiocese stated. The removal of stained glass had begun a week earlier.

LifeSiteNews contacted multiple employees of the Archdiocese of Chicago in the Planning and Construction division to ask whether they are aware of any exceptions to the rule that windows not be removed from buildings with a pending landmark status, but has not received a response.

Mundelein, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, is being considered as a storage location site for the windows, according to a source known to LifeSiteNews.

A group of those working to save the church are now initiating an effort to have the stained-glass windows reinstalled.

Church supporters maintain that even before St. Adalbert’s preliminary landmark status, the Archdiocese did not follow necessary procedure to begin stained-glass window removal, since the church is an orange-rated building, and such buildings require both a permit for significant alterations and a 90-day hold on the permit so that the landmarking commission can assess whether the building “qualifies for landmark protection.”

Anna Leja, a former St. Adalbert’s attendee, reported that Matt Crawford, an Architectural Historian with the City of Chicago’s Landmarks Division, told a police officer on August 1 — before the preliminary landmark designation took effect — that no permit was needed to remove the church’s windows.

In an email to LifeSiteNews, Strazzabosco asked for clarification on the nature of the reports that stained-glass windows continued to be removed Tuesday but did not address LifeSiteNews’ question as to whether removal of windows without a permit is permitted for an orange-rated, non-residential building like St. Adalbert’s.

‘I’ve never seen anything like it’

The Chicago Landmark Commission meeting on Monday was packed with about 300 people who urged that St. Adalbert’s be landmarked in an effort to save it from an already-begun purge by the Archdiocese of Chicago.

Dozens of locals came forward to testify, many of them passionately, to the importance of preserving St. Adalbert’s. Anna Leja, a Polish immigrant who formerly attended the church’s monthly Polish-language Mass, explained to LifeSiteNews that the church is much more than a “cultural center.”

“One lady said, ‘This is not just a building. This is a church. This is a house of God,” said Leja, emphasizing that the church’s role as a house of worship is what is most important about it.

“This is my aim. To fight for the church as a place of worship and a place for God,” she declared.

Leja shared that she herself gave a speech during the meeting in which she mentioned Pope John Paul II’s exhortation to young people in 1979 to “remain faithful” to St. Adalbert, who Leja noted is the “second patron saint of Poland,” mentioned only after Mary, the Mother of God. 

She quoted St. John Paul II’s words at the time: “Preserve St. Adalbert’s heritage of faith. Remain faithful to him and multiply it and pass it on to the next generation.”

According to Radecki and other meeting attendees, what clinched the unanimous vote to landmark the church was when the full house broke out into song, singing in Polish a hymn, “Barka,” that is known as a favorite song of St. John Paul II.

One attendee, George Sirak, said a police officer who was in another part of the building heard a commotion and came to the City Council Chambers to see what was going on. The police officer reportedly said such a thing has “never happened in the history of City Hall.” 

Radecki told LifeSiteNews, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“It was amazing to see so much love, so much unity … it was very touching,” she continued, admitting that she was brought to tears.

She explained that a Polish man came up to the podium and began to sing, at which point the crowd rose to their feet and joined him in unison, singing for over three minutes.

“O Lord, this is You who have found me. From your lips I could hear my name. And my boat I do leave on the shore now, since today I’ll be fishing with you,” sings the refrain, translated into English.

“They moved mountains with that song … I could see it in their eyes and their heart, that people love that church. Some of them were crying. They were all together and holding hands,” Radecki went on.

It was acknowledged during Monday’s landmark committee meeting that a large portion of St. Adalbert’s community never transferred to St. Paul after the former church’s closure.

One such former St. Adalbert’s parishioner is Demetrio Reyes, who is turned off by what he sees as St. Paul’s fixation, together with the archdiocese, on money instead of the needs of the community.

“We don’t want to move to St. Paul’s because they … want to sell the church for money,” Reyes told LifeSiteNews, adding regarding St. Adalbert’s, “They are destroying everything.”

Reyes continues to pray outside St. Adalbert’s on Sundays, along with other members of St. Adalbert’s Rosary Group. Members of the group continue to pray outside the church seven days a week, rain or shine, as they have for four years since the church closed.

“We are in the fight because we want to reopen St. Adalbert’s. This is our future. This is our history,” Reyes said.