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

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emsvetich:
Thank you,
I was being facetious to make a point. It is scary how society rationalizes these things, isn’t it. I am glad that my point was made.
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Um…I believe that the Catholic church was one of his vocal supporters.
 
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TheRaiders:
For Stanley Williams?
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The North American Catholic Bishops Association opposed the execution of Stanley Williams and issued a statement to that effect. That is a long way from holding him up as some sort of role model or glorifying him or his actions, four murders, in any way.
 
Thanks for the info. I am still unclear on the Catholic stance on the death penalty.
 
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emsvetich:
Thank you ! I find it interesting that this thread has gone on this long before someone finally said that “Most catholics don’t know anything about Canon Law”. Unfortunately, you state this fact as if it can be used as a defense for the schismatic activities of those affiliated with St. Stan’s.
So here some are defending a schismatic group. There is no question that they are in schism-even Rome agrees.We can rationalize that it was the Archbishop’s fault that this all happened. The next thing that you know, some violent murderer will be held up as a role model and his innocent victims will be forgotten.

Isn’t it interesting how these things get twisted around? Excuse me for being a traditional Catholic. If the Archbishop, Canon Law and those to whom this was appealed in the Vatican all agree, it does not take a legal scholar to know which is the correct action to take-unless of course, it is all relative!
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I find it very disheartening when Canon Law is the priority over everything else! How can the Church argue in secular court that a parish DOES NOT belong to the Archdiocese and tell St. Stan’s that a parish DOES belong to the Archdiocese. So which way is it? I understand there are dioceses in the NW where parishes hold title to the property. How does Canon Law find those parishes in compliance?

I find it very **disingenuous **when the Archbishop says he prays for a reconcilliation and in the same breath call the parishioners Satan. Why did he have to excommunicate them publicly? Why didn’t he excommunicate them to their faces, or at least drop them a line before he made the public announcement? Does he really want a reconcilliation? I say no. This morning he officially suppressed the parish according to KMOX news. That does not sound like an Archbishop hoping for a reconcilliation. I have a hard time finding a Catholic in St. Louis these days agreeing with how the Archbishop is handling this. I guess we will all burn in hell! I am not saying I support how St. Stan’s has handled this situation in the last couple of months, but I certainly do not stand behind Archbishop Burke and how he handled this from the beginning. Neither side has an ounce of empathy in their bones right now!
 
shades of gray:
I find it very **disingenuous **when the Archbishop says he prays for a reconcilliation and in the same breath call the parishioners Satan. Why did he have to excommunicate them publicly? Why didn’t he excommunicate them to their faces, or at least drop them a line before he made the public announcement? Does he really want a reconcilliation? I say no. This morning he officially suppressed the parish according to KMOX news. That does not sound like an Archbishop hoping for a reconcilliation. I have a hard time finding a Catholic in St. Louis these days agreeing with how the Archbishop is handling this. I guess we will all burn in hell! I am not saying I support how St. Stan’s has handled this situation in the last couple of months, but I certainly do not stand behind Archbishop Burke and how he handled this from the beginning. Neither side has an ounce of empathy in their bones right now!
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Say what you want within the bounds of honest opinion, but don’t keep pushing this whole “the Archbishop called St. Stan’s parishoners Satan” angle. There’s no logical necessity that Satan refer back to St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish in the quote you provided:

“As I wrote at the beginning, my heart is heavy in writing to you about the break of communion with the Church by our brothers and sisters at St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish, most especially at the Holy Seasons of Advent and Christmas. We must not, however, permit Satan to steal our joy at the preparation for Christmas and the celebration of the Birth of Our Lord Jesus.”

The only way to hold so strongly to your claim that this was the bishop’s intent is by wanting to do so. Satan is the author of division and father of lies. It’s not surprising that he would be referenced regarding a schism, a sin of immense gravity. Now, His Excellency certainly recognizes the work and influence of Satan in the actions and calls a spade a spade in that regard. Just as one can point out the hand of Satan in the work of an abortionist or adulterer without confusing the personal identities of the human and demon, so the bishop has recognized the probable activity of Satan in this situation of objectively grave sin without confusing the persons of the St. Stan’s board and Fr. Bozek with Satan himself. He’s a smarter man than that, and his prose contains no confusion of the different persons, either.
 
I just found an interesting article in Catholic World News. Maybe someone who has a better Canon Law knowledge than I could verify if this article is accurate?

cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=31225

“But the archdiocese counters by saying that under canon law, these properties belong to the parishes, and the archdiocese merely holds them in trust.
The court debate on this point could set a number of important legal precedents. The *Code of Canon Law *does clearly state that parish properties belong to the parishes themselves. However, it is not clear whether American courts will consider themselves bound by the principles of Church law. As a matter of legal record, the properties are clearly owned by the archdiocese.”

Thanks for your help!
 
Andreas Hofer:
Say what you want within the bounds of honest opinion, but don’t keep pushing this whole “the Archbishop called St. Stan’s parishoners Satan” angle. There’s no logical necessity that Satan refer back to St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish in the quote you provided:

“As I wrote at the beginning, my heart is heavy in writing to you about the break of communion with the Church by our brothers and sisters at St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish, most especially at the Holy Seasons of Advent and Christmas. We must not, however, permit Satan to steal our joy at the preparation for Christmas and the celebration of the Birth of Our Lord Jesus.”

The only way to hold so strongly to your claim that this was the bishop’s intent is by wanting to do so.
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OK I will amend my comment- IMO, the Archbishop called the parishioners, Satan.
 
shades of gray:
I just found an interesting article in Catholic World News. Maybe someone who has a better Canon Law knowledge than I could verify if this article is accurate?

cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=31225

“But the archdiocese counters by saying that under canon law, these properties belong to the parishes, and the archdiocese merely holds them in trust.
The court debate on this point could set a number of important legal precedents. The *Code of Canon Law *does clearly state that parish properties belong to the parishes themselves. However, it is not clear whether American courts will consider themselves bound by the principles of Church law. As a matter of legal record, the properties are clearly owned by the archdiocese.”

Thanks for your help!
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Good luck getting anyone to respond. This has been brought up many times. The best answer seems to be that the Church says so.
 
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Lurch104:
Good luck getting anyone to respond. This has been brought up many times. The best answer seems to be that the Church says so.
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That is in short all true,

However being the freethinking and free-willed Americans we are, we find it hard if not impossible at times to submit to any authority beyond our selves, no matter how legitimate it is demonstrated to be. Our self interests seem to trump all other considerations, but then again we do live in an enlightened modern world don’t we?
 
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TheRaiders:
Thanks for the info. I am still unclear on the Catholic stance on the death penalty.
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Glad to help and I susoect that there are others hereabouts who can do a better job of explaining the chuch’s position on the death penalty than I. To my understanding the official church position isn’t to oppose the death penalty in every case but Pope John Paul the Second went right up to that point in his denouncing a culture of death. The trick of it is that he never actually said that it is never correct but would instead always toss a qualifier in like “almost never”. The North American Catholic Bishops Association has said that it is never warrented but in light of the pope’s phrasing I don’t believe that someone would automatically be in violation of church teaching if they honestly felt that the death penalty was appropriate. For my part I do not support it but I should confess that my reasons are different from those stated by the bishops association. They have stated that by imposing captial punishment the chance for redemption is lost,not really my place to say, and I have lawyas felt that as we are human and all make mistakes it would be better to keep a hundred guilty alive in prison than to risk the chance of executing one innocent. Again I imagine that there are others who can answer this, in relation to the church’s position, far better than I.
 
The death penalty has been discussed at length on many threads in the Moral Theology forum. The topic of this thread is St. Stans, not the death penalty. Please stay on the topic.

Thanks,

Walt
 
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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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Yes I do and yes I believe he still is.

I am from the first parish Father Marek served after ordination and although I am sorrowed by the entire mess, I believe that he acted on what he believed was God’s desire.

The incessant hammering against Bozek in this diocese (Springfield-Cape) continues and it makes me sick. The Church has excommunicated him. Can’t we just pray for him and leave it alone?

Apparently not.
 
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