St. Louis Archdiocese statement regarding Fr. Marek Bozek and St. Stanislaus Parish

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Looks like things will get very interesting at the beginning of next year.

PF
 
We’ve been following this story for awhile–Fr. Bozek is from our diocese; he was quite active at my parents’ church while preparing for the priesthood. I can’t believe he would just leave like that. There was a big article about it in our diocesan newspaper, but he was out of town, so there was no comment from him.
 
St. Stanislaus is a few blocks north of my workplace–I drove up there one day last year when this whole issue was broiling, just to see where this place was. I’ve never been inside the building–I’m not Roman Catholic nor Polish and in any case figured the services would be in Polish or in Slavonic or whatever the traditional liturgical language for Poland was.

I can say that many Protestants and non-Christians see this whole thing as a land-grab by Bishop/Archbishop/Cardinal Burke (whatever his title is–sorry!). Some professing Catholics say the same thing–keep in mind that I don’t know very many faithful or practicing Roman Catholics, so this doesn’t mean much. Whenever this issue gets brought up on local talk shows, the RCC hierarchy gets roasted pretty toasty. The St. Louis RCC in my humble opinion has some image-rebuilding to do over this whole thing.

One thing no one seems to want to suggest is that Fr. Bozek, at the expense of his own reputation and career as a priest, MAY serve to be the peacemaker in this affair. I’m not commending his decision to disobey his superiors and become a vagante priest–is that an appropriate term??? But from that position, he MAY be able to do more in terms of reasoning with the St. Stanislaus people than he could as an outsider. It might make a difference in a positive way.
 
flame,

The Priest has been suspended and is no longer allowed to say Mass, I have no clue what good he has done. He cannot be a peacemaker because he has tossed peace out the window the minute he broke his promise to God and the Church.
 
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TPJCatholic:
flame,

The Priest has been suspended and is no longer allowed to say Mass, I have no clue what good he has done. He cannot be a peacemaker because he has tossed peace out the window the minute he broke his promise to God and the Church.
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Umm . . .with or without permission, I guess Fr. Bozek is GOING to say Mass. That much seems clear.

On the other hand he potentially CAN use his influence as a priest to remind parishioners of their duty to resolve these matters peaceably. There may be much he can say and/or do both publicly and privately to expedite a peaceable resolution satisfactory to all sides.

Unlss of curse you’d 'druther he took the flock into the loving arms of the Polish National Catholic Church?
 
As a Catholic, a few things concern me about the St. Stanislas/Fr. Bozek situation.

Almost immediately, Bozek’s status as a priest was revoked by the bishop. Bozek was also featured with a one-sided story in the Mirror, the diocesan newspaper.

Haven’t other priests guilty of worse been allowed to continue in the priesthood? Especially without the front page calling out in the diocese wide paper…? How will this action of the paper facilitate reconcilliation?

The people of St. Stanislas have to make a decision. They must choose to either
A) Surrender their hard earned financial assets to the Church
or
B) Disband their parish
or
C) Go independent.
It seems to me my church is being a little heavy handed in this case.

Mark Bozek left my parish, St. Agnes of Springfield, to take this new role. Either he’s crazy or he has a good reason to take the course of action he’s taken. I believe that Bozek is not crazy, and that he has good reason for his current course.
 
flame,

If he wanted to be a peacemaker, he would not have resigned and taken the position…he clearly and obviously disagrees with the Bishop. Anyone attending one of his so-called “Masses” will be in grave sin…also known as mortal sin, something no-one wants on their soul. If the Priest and the people following think so little of their souls, and of eternity, then there is likely very little anyone can do.
 
ernesto,

The faith is not a democray. It is really that simple. The Bishops is merely implementing Canon Law, which is shocking to some people because for the last 30 years or more most Bishops have NOT done that. The Priest is in grave danger, and so are the people who follow him and so are the people leading that parish. I disagree with your three options, there is really only one option: The dissenting Priest and the dissneting Parish must immediately repent of their horrible actions against the Bips, the Church and God. Anything short of that places their souls in grave danger.
 
Hi TPJ!

I think we all know the faith is not a democracy…
However, I think it’s too bad that this parish was allowed to garner tremendous financial assets-
only to have the archdiocese take them and their parish away…!

To me, taking these hard earned assets and taking these people’s parish is more horrible than Mark Bozek’s actions.
I think it could be reasonably put forth that no one’s eternal destiny is at stake yet as a result of this dispute.

TPJ- do you think that Bozek’s actions are worse than those of many other priests who have never been publicly called out?

As for me, I think it’s okay to wonder aloud about the actions of the parties involved here.

Thanks for your (name removed by moderator)ut…!
 
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ernesto:
Mark Bozek left my parish, St. Agnes of Springfield, to take this new role. Either he’s crazy or he has a good reason to take the course of action he’s taken. I believe that Bozek is not crazy, and that he has good reason for his current course.
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Ernesto, my parents and brother knew Fr. Mark quite well and are really surprised by this. I can’t image how your parish is feeling. But, he knew what he was getting into when he signed up to be a priest; he knew he was pledging some kind of obedience to Bishop Leibrecht, and for him to just up and leave like that is wrong. It’s hurt you and the rest at St. Agnes; it’s really hurting those at St. Stanislaus, placing them in mortal sin if they allow him to function as their priest. I’m guessing that he feels like he has good reasons for what he’s done, but there was a much better way than the action he took.
 
What were the better options, aurora?

Bozek (a pole) could let the polish parish in St. Louis dissipate while it lost its financial assets. Financial assets they raised entirely on their own to save their parish.

The church is, I think in this case, mistaken and in the wrong.

Again, to me, Bozek is really getting hammered. Priests have done much worse, in my opinion, without public calling out by their own bishops.

The church should have told St. Stanislas to abondon their parish before they let them make the financial sacrifices to save it…!

I disagree that anyone’s immortal soul is in danger. I don’t believe God will condemn these people to hell for wanting accountability on how the financial assets they’ve put together are used… My opinion.
 
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ernesto:
What were the better options, aurora?

Bozek (a pole) could let the polish parish in St. Louis dissipate while it lost its financial assets. Financial assets they raised entirely on their own to save their parish.

The church is, I think in this case, mistaken and in the wrong.
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It really doesn’t matter what any of us think, Fr. Mark included. What bothers me is that as a priest, he knows what being a priest entails. Abandoning his job at St. Agnes is wrong. What would your boss do if you just walked away from your job without giving proper notice? I feel sorry for everyone involved, I’m sure there’s so much more to this story on all sides that we’ll never know about.
 
I don’t disagree, aurora…

Apparently, Bozek exhausted every other means of making the situation work. The church was determined to close St. Stanislas and absorb the financial assets they’d raised to save their parish.

What I still don’t understand is-
How does calling out Bozek’s actions in the diocese paper (which every southern MO Catholic is required to get) with a one-sided front page feature complete with color photo-
promote reconcilliation?

Other priests have done worse without being publicly called out. Don’t you feel that Bozek is unneccesarily getting the hammer here?
 
Ernesto,

Thank for your replies. 🙂

However, I think it’s too bad that this parish was allowed to garner tremendous financial assets-only to have the archdiocese take them and their parish away…!

==> Those are not the parish’s assets…it belongs to the global Church and that is all the Bishop is trying to get done.

To me, taking these hard earned assets and taking these people’s parish is more horrible than Mark Bozek’s actions.

==> The assets do NOT belong to the people…that is the Protestant model and has never been the Catholic way of handling Church and parish assets. The Priests broke a vow to his Bishop, to the Church and to God–that is far worse.

I think it could be reasonably put forth that no one’s eternal destiny is at stake yet as a result of this dispute.

==> I disagree. The dissenters are very much placing their own souls at risk and so is the dissenting priest.

TPJ- do you think that Bozek’s actions are worse than those of many other priests who have never been publicly called out?

è That is not a valid question. Pointing to someone else and their sins does not negate the sin or harm committed by that parish and the dissenters. Pointing to other evils never negates the evil at hand.

==> Again, the Church/faith is not a demcracy, it quite frankly a theocracy and each diocese is run by its Bishop (who is for all practical purposes the spiritual king of his diocese) and only in extreme cases is the Holy See’ involved. Bishops have near complete autonomy in these matters unless their is a clear breech of Canon Law or some other flagrant offense. If memory serves, the parish has already petitioned Rome and lost their case. They have no choice but to repent and follow their Bishop, anything short of that and they are placing themselves at great eternal risk (it does not matter if you do not agree with that–no offense intend whtsoever). This is no game, and it is not a politcal battle like the media seems to want to portray it as. The Bishop is quite correct to be doing this, parish assets belong to the diocese (if not, then they might as well become Protestant), the people need to repent.
 
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ernesto:
I don’t disagree, aurora…

Apparently, Bozek exhausted every other means of making the situation work. The church was determined to close St. Stanislas and absorb the financial assets they’d raised to save their parish.

What I still don’t understand is-
How does calling out Bozek’s actions in the diocese paper (which every southern MO Catholic is required to get) with a one-sided front page feature complete with color photo-
promote reconcilliation?

Other priests have done worse without being publicly called out. Don’t you feel that Bozek is unneccesarily getting the hammer here?
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No. He walked away from his assignment at his church. He’s been suspended by his bishop, yet says he’ll go about his priestly business as if that hadn’t happened. If my priest did that to us, I’d be furious. What were they supposed to do, pretend this isn’t happening? It’s the biggest news in the diocese this week, of course it’s on the front page of the paper. Again, the article said he’s out of the country, so no comment from him; I’m interested to see if they do have a statement from him in the next issue.
 
Ernesto,

BTW, no-one that I have ever read has stated that the parish or chrcuh was “going away” after the diocese took control. All Bishop Burke wanted was conformity to Canon Law…he is an actualy faithful Roman Catholic Bishop…rare, yet that is still what he is. I seriously doubt that he plans to close the Church and Parish, yet even if he does, that is HIS call, not the parish.
 
According to the letter published by the parish, which was established before the codification of canon law, an agreement was made between the parish and bishop which granted the parish certain controls which were not normal. The agreement was grandfathered in when the canon law was codified.

If this is the case, it seems to me that there is much room for compromise on both sides. If the bishop and/or archbishop broke the agreement, then they were wrong, not that that makes subsequent events right.
It is a real shame that all of this can’t be made public and resolved in a reasonable manner by reasonable Christian men.
 
The St. Louis parish has taken on a structure similar to that in Protestant congregations, which gives authority in the church to a lay committee and effectively turns the pastor into an employee. The parishes lay board of directors has final says on most matters, including financial areas. The structure was put in place when the parish was founded to serve the Polish immigrant community back in 1880. In 1891, then-Archbishop Peter Kenrick and parish leaders signed a deed conveying church property from the archdiocese to a private parish corporation with a board of lay church members.** But such arrangements were invalidated by the 1917 edition of the Code of Canon Law,** although subsequent archbishops allowed the situation to continue.

cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=31347
 
You make good points, aurora & TPJ…

It’s easy for us to say what the people of St. Stanislas should do… It’s not our effort, money and sacrifice that’s being absorbed by the diocese…

Geezerbob is right on… St. Stan was granted special priviledges (among them the right to recieve no financial help from the diocese) and they are merely trying to live up to the agreement. Now they’re on the short end of 1917 rule changes.

My experience with Fr. Bozek at St. Agnes is that he is a man of God who can in this case be reasonably seen as trying to work for what’s fair… We have another priest here at St. Agnes, so I have no problem and no fury for Mark Bozek.

I doubt Bozek is the first priest in the diocese to violate a vow. He is, however, the first priest to be singled out on the cover of the diocese wide paper immediately after doing so. We have to admit that Bozek has hurt no one, don’t we?

I think the question is fair and deserves some kind of answer- why have priests who have done worse and done real harm to others not be called out in such a public way?

I like Burke & Leibrecht. In this case I simply question their handling of this incident.

My view- it’s God’s decision who will be held responsible for the changing of the rules which St. Stan now finds itself on the short end of. To me, it’s not automatic that changing canon law and the diocese are always right and the people always wrong…
perhaps we should agree to disagree on those points… (I am one of those guilty of thinking that right is not always on the side of church government.)
 
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