Catholic World News News Feature
Vatican upholds excommunication in St. Louis case May 29, 2008
The Vatican has upheld a decree by Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis, Missouri, excommunicating the trustees of a rebellious parish.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has denied an appeal by the trustees of St. Stanislaus Kostka parish. In a May 15 judgment, which Archbishop Burke announced on the archdiocesan web site, the Congregation ruled that the trustees had failed to lodge their appeal within the prescribed time limit. More important, the Vatican noted, the trustees had "committed the delict of schism" by refusing to acknowledge the archbishop's authority over the parish.
Archbishop Burke announced the excommunication of the trustees in December, when the board of St. Stanislaus Kostka hired a pastor-- Father Marek Bozek, a priest who had been suspended by his own bishop in the neighboring Springfield-Cape Girardeau diocese-- in defiance of the archbishop.
The Vatican ruling-- signed by Cardinal William Levada, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith-- said that the trustees had refused "to subject themselves to the lawfully constituted ecclesiastical authority." That constituted an act of schism, justifying the decree of excommunication, the Vatican said.
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