Two more face excommunication

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Just last week, the Archdiocese of St. Louis agreed to allow a Polish parish to hold board elections as part of a court compromise in a long-simmering dispute.

But only a few days later, the archdiocese's interim leader warned eight parishioners running for board positions at St. Stanislaus Kostka church that they face excommunication.

Bishop Robert Hermann issued the warning in letters to the eight parishioners. Some found the letter taped to their front doors.

In the letter, Hermann noted that a Vatican decree in May said holding a seat on the St. Stanislaus board "constitutes an 'evident' act of schism," or refusal to submit to the pope.

Hermann asked all the candidates to withdraw their names from consideration for the election, adding "you are in danger of losing the eternal salvation of your soul."

The archdiocese had gone to court to try to stop the elections but dropped that demand last week as part of a compromise with the parish.

St. Stanislaus agreed to cancel a second vote over the weekend that would have amended its bylaws and further distanced St. Stanislaus from the authority of the St. Louis archbishop.

The new bylaws would have made it more difficult to fire St. Stanislaus' pastor, the Rev. Marek Bozek, an action the church's most recent board had taken up.

In June, the church's six board members deadlocked twice on the question of firing Bozek. At a third meeting, Bozek broke the deadlock himself, dissolving the board.

St. Stanislaus parishioners voted over the weekend to elect a new board, and on Sunday announced that four former board members -- John Baras, William Bialczak, Stanley Novak and Joe Rudawski -- had all been re-elected. Baras, Bialczak and Rudawski were the three board members who had voted to retain Bozek as pastor in June. Novak served an earlier term on the board. All four of their excommunications were upheld by the Vatican in May.

Richard Lapinski and Janice Merzweiler were the two new parishioners voted onto the new board Sunday. According to Hermann's letter, they now face excommunication.

"I thought the outcome of the court meeting last week was that everyone was going to play nice and that the archdiocese would allow this election to go on," Lapinski told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "Then they come like a thief in the night and deliver this letter threatening excommunication? That doesn't sound to me like the archdiocese is playing nice."

Merzweiler said she was upset at first, after receiving Hermann's letter, "but then I realized this is a struggle that's been going on for a while and I feel that now I'm really a part of it."

After the board was dissolved in June, the three board members who had voted to fire Bozek were reconciled with the archdiocese. All three, along with another former board member who had been reconciled with the church, joined the archdiocese in its lawsuit against St. Stanislaus.

The archdiocese said through a spokeswoman it would not comment on private correspondence or the pending suit.

In December 2005, then-St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke declared all six St. Stanislaus board members excommunicated after they hired Bozek to be the church's pastor. Burke also declared Bozek excommunicated and has since asked Pope Benedict XVI to laicize, or defrock, the priest.

If Hermann declares Lapinski and Merzweiler excommunicated, the total excommunications surrounding St. Stanislaus will grow to 11. Four have since reconciled.

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Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com