Tuesday, August 10, 2010

St. Stanislaus steps back from unification


BY MICHELE MUNZ

Reconciling with the Archdiocese of St. Louis was pushed further from reach Sunday as a majority of St. Stanislaus Kostka Church members said they opposed a proposed resolution.

In what attorneys called a 'survey," 257 parishioners voted that they "do not agree with the direction the Board is pursuing toward settling the lawsuit," while 185 agreed with the direction of negotiations...

In 2004, former St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke demanded that St. Stanislaus conform to the same legal and financial structures of all other parishes, despite having managed its own finances and property since its founding in 1891.

The church's lay board refused, and Burke pulled the church's priests. A year later, the lay board named Rev. Marek Bozek its pastor. Burke declared Bozek excommunicated and stripped the church of its standing as a Roman Catholic parish...

Some parishioners voted against the resolution because they do not want to lose Bozek, while others fear the archdiocese would use the agreement to shutter the church, which is just north of downtown.

Mick Kenney, 61, of St. Louis, and his wife, Nancy Wendover, are among many new members attached to Bozek, who supports gays in the church and ordination of women. The divorced and remarried Catholic couple said they never felt welcome at Mass until coming to St. Stanislaus. Rather than pursuing re-establishment as a Roman Catholic parish, they want the church to continue its less exclusionary stance as an independent Catholic church...

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I've been following that since Abp. Burke's time. Being half Polish, and a genealogist who has studied much of the the beginnings of the Poles in the U.S. and the formation of the Polish National Catholic Church in the late 1890s, and a huge split in Duluth that tore the community apart, including some of my relatives, all I can say is: Poles in the U.S. have long memories and don't like people telling them what to do.

They'd rather be right than go to heaven.

belinda said...

(I borrowed Michael from the vortex from you only for today. His video was exellent .. if not terrifying.. To bad it's true.