In Communion With The Excommunicants
Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. You are excommunicated. The Archbishop of St. Louis slapped the rabble at St. Stanislaus with the harshest penalty the Catholic church has to offer. The Board of Directors and the newly hired pastor, Fr. Marek Bozek, are no longer members of the church because their actions defy the authority of the Archbishop. In addition to the excommunications the parish itself was suppressed meaning that it is no longer a Catholic parish. This Archbishop guy has some power.
Schism is the word and reason which the Archbishop uses to justify the damnation of those involved. Schism is "the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him" (can. 751), so states the Archbishop in his weekly newsletter to the faithful (and a few unfaithful) via the St. Louis Review. But excommunication on the grounds of committing "schism" has usually been reserved for the heretics undermining the doctrines of the church or abortionists. There are plenty of leaders in the Catholic church who have defied the authority of the Pope and his underlings and not suffered the "big X".
Technically speaking, the Archbishop only made public the excommunication as the perpetrators of the schism automatically incurred the punishment by their acts. So he's really off the hook as the bad guy as he was only doing his job. No personal agenda was involved. But I think the Archbishop went for the jugular when he used the 'S" word, Satan. He writes, "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". Is he saying that these acts of "schism" were the devil's doings? That the dispute over the parish funds is inherently evil? Give me a Holy break. Besides that, now that St. Stan's lays in the valley of suppression, who gets the a$$ets?
I know quite a few people who intend to participate in the celebration of Christmas Mass at St. Stan's, even though the Archbishop has threatened them with staining their souls with a mortal sin. I guess we'll just have to wait until judgment day to see what God has to say about all this.
posted by Dan at 12:32 AM
4 Comments:
Do I sense an exorcism in the works?
Did you hear that the AB is moving towards supressing (see 1983 CCL,no515,par2) the whole parish? That means that the parish would not be Roman Catholic, persons participating in sacraments would be in dire peril of mortal sin.
Anyways, an exorcism is intriguing since Burke in his letter last week cited that we must avoid the hand of the devil...hmmm...or we could look at it the Frank Cleary, SJ way that no one can be possessed--we're just using that 85% of our brain we don't use now.
http://www.stltoday.com/blogs/news-letters-to-the-editor/2005/12/st-stan-archbishop-obliged-to-suppress/
Maybe he will ride out to the airport on his exorcise bike.
Perhaps the next step will the inquisition.
Depending on how many spokes are on the Abp's wheel, maybe he could tie the pastor and board to the wheel all at once.
Or maybe... he will bring out the comfy chair.
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