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In dispute, archbishop denies sacraments to parish leaders
By Michael Conlon, Reuters | February 12, 2005
CHICAGO -- The Roman Catholic archbishop of St. Louis has issued an order denying the sacraments to leaders of a rebellious parish in a dispute over control of the parish and its millions of dollars in assets.
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The archdiocese maintains that parish board leaders some years ago illegally changed parish bylaws written in 1891, eliminating all of the archdiocese's control. It is a situation unique among churches in the archdiocese where no other parish is controlled by a board of laypeople.
The board has suggested the archdiocese wants to close the church and take its assets of more than $9 million.
The archdiocese said the six board members controlling the parish were notified by letter Thursday that Archbishop Raymond Burke had issued an ''interdict" against them -- an order that denies them the Eucharist and other church sacraments.
The board of St. Stanislaus Kostka parish, founded by Polish immigrants in the late 19th century and still a center of Polish worship, has ''completely removed itself from the authority of the Catholic Church," Archbishop Raymond Burke said in a statement yesterday. Burke, who last year was among the first US Catholic prelates to suggest that then-Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry be denied Communion because of his stand on abortion, said the figure of $9 million in assets was exaggerated.
The archdiocese moved its priests out of the parish to an adjacent one and no Masses have been said there recently, except on Christmas, said Roger Krasnicki, spokesman for the board.
Last summer the board unsuccessfully petitioned the Vatican, which said that its actions were ''a clear affront to the authority of the church." The Vatican urged the parish leadership to work with the archbishop to resolve the issue. But in January, parishioners voted overwhelmingly not to turn over any assets to the archdiocese.
Burke sent a written proposal to the board offering a guarantee that the parish property would not be sold as long as parishioners of Polish descent worship there and support it. If the parish is ever closed, he said, property and assets would revert to the parish to be used ''for religious, charitable and educational programs for Catholics of Polish descent."
The board rejected the proposal. Krasnicki called Burke's interdict against the board a ''scandal" orchestrated ''by someone we believe is hungry for power."