Clergy & Staff Directory

Fr. Paul Barwikowski Associate Pastor & Director of Liturgy

Father Pawel (Paul) Barwikowski was born in Pisz, Poland in January 1988. In 2007, he became a seminarian of the diocese of Elk, Poland where he completed the first three years of the priesthood formation. In 2009, he was transferred to Bishop Abramowicz Seminary located in Chicago. While he was leaving Poland to come to Chicago, the Bishop of the diocese of Elk said to him, “I’m letting you go, because the Church is universal. Serving in Poland or in the United States, you will still be serving the same Church.” With the permission and blessing of his Bishop, Fr. Paul joined the group of three men that came to Chicago in 2010. In 2011, He was accepted into the Major Seminary of the Archdiocese of Chicago located at Mundelein. He was ordained a Priest of the Archdiocese on May 21, 2016. Since then, Fr. Paul served two different communities. His first assignment was St. Andrew Parish located in  Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood and after 7 months was transferred to St. Constance Parish in Chicago where he spent last 5 years serving as an Associate Pastor and Administrator. In July 2021, Fr. Paul was appointed an Associate Pastor of St. Clement Parish where he will be serving as the Director of Liturgy.

Lisa Friedlander Director of Youth Group

Lisa Friedlander joined the parish staff in April 2013 as our Director of Youth Group. Her primary responsibilities include God Squad (our youth group).

Lisa joined our faith community in 1999, was married here and baptized her two children here. Her son and daughter are current students at our school. Through the years Lisa has been involved in many of our ministries as a volunteer and we are excited to now have her as a member of our staff.

Paul Nicholson Director of Music

Named Director of Music at Saint Clement in 2010, Paul is a distinguished Chicago accompanist, vocal coach, composer, conductor and singer. He has served both faculty and staff at Roosevelt University, Lake Forest College, Concordia University, Columbia College, and the School of Music at DePaul University. 

He has sung with the Chicago Symphony and Grant Park Music Festival choruses. His vocal and instrumental compositions have been recorded on the Cedille, Imaginary Road and Polygram labels, and he has appeared both at the keyboard and as a singer on Live from Studio One on WFMT. Currently he serves as accompanist to the Grant Park Music Festival chorus. Paul serves Saint Clement as principal organist and director of three choral ensembles: Schola Clementis, Seraphim, and Cantate Choir. In addition, he auditions and trains all cantors and instrumentalists.

Gael Day Receptionist & Wedding Coordinator

Gael joined Saint Clement in February 2007 as our Parish Receptionist and Wedding Coordinator. In her role as Parish Receptionist, she provides both welcome and hospitality to all who come to the Parish Office. In addition, Gael is the person on staff who assists with facility scheduling and coordination, keeps all the sacramental records, and supports the parish ministry to our homeless guests.

As Wedding Coordinator, Gael works with couples wishing to be married here, beginning with scheduling the wedding and Marriage Information Night through record keeping and recording. Before joining Saint Clement, Gael worked as an executive assistant to key executives for such companies as Pan American World Airways, Washington National Insurance Company, and Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. She was born and raised in New York City, is the proud grandmother of two grandchildren, and loves to spend time with them.   

Joanna Krynski Communications Manager

Joanna joined the Saint Clement Parish staff in April 2005, hired for the communications position. In 2014, after having her first child, she switched to the part-time Outreach and Adult Formation Assistant position. In October 2019, Joanna moved back to the communications role, becoming the Communications Manager. Her general duties include managing the parish's bulletin, website, e-newsletters, annual mailings, and social media. 

Joanna graduated from Loyola University Chicago with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English/Creative Writing and Women Studies, earning the John Gerrietts Award for Excellence in Creative Writing—awarded to one graduating senior each year. During college, she held internships at the Field Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art (in their marketing and media relations departments, respectively). In June 2013, Joanna graduated (with distinction) from DePaul University, earning a Master of Arts degree in Writing and Publishing.

Geraldine White Director of Operations

Geraldine (“Dine”) joined the Saint Clement staff as Director of Operations in 2018. As Director of Operations Dine is our professional administrator and parish leader, reporting to the pastor, being accountable to him for parish finance, administration, plant management and stewardship. In addition, Dine managers our pastoral and administrative staff compliance with all personnel policies of the Archdiocese and is the staff liaison to the Financial Council and the Building & Grounds Committee.  She also oversees and supervises our Director of Plant Management, the Data Base Manager, Receptionist, and Communications Specialist.

Dine comes to us from Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish and the National Shrine of St. Jude on Chicago’s far south side where she was Business Manager.  In that capacity, Geraldine oversaw all operations at the parish, the school and a religious goods store affiliated with the Shrine. As that parish’s Business Manager, Dine navigated a series of complicated transitional issues, including the sale of obsolete equipment, installation of more up-to-date accounting practices and point-of-sale software and the replacement of a school principal.  

Prior to joining the Archdiocese at Our Lady of Guadalupe, Geraldine worked as a pharmacologic research analyst for the London and Philadelphia offices of The Research Partnership.  She is an alumna of Knox College and of the University of Chicago’s Booth Graduate School of Business and a licensed CPA.  Before devoting full time to raising six children with her attorney husband, Geraldine worked as a small business consultant with Deloitte, Touche (now Deloitte) doing client reviews, and also was involved with bond offerings and with mid-size company mergers. All six of her children are graduates of private colleges and universities, five of them Catholic and the sixth a part of the so-called “new” Ivy League. 

Passionate about college access for high schoolers, Dine is also the founder and principal of CollegeNow Advising, which provides high-level admissions and financial aid counselling to college bound high schoolers.