St. Louis archbishop excommunicates dissident priest, parish board

Published: 2005-12-22

ST. LOUIS (CNS) -- Archbishop Raymond L. Burke of St. Louis has declared that the six members of a dissident lay board of directors of a Polish Catholic parish and the priest they recently hired from a neighboring diocese are excommunicated. Since the board controls the parish and has chosen to lead its members into schism, "I will be obliged to suppress St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish," he said. He warned that anyone who receives any sacrament from the priest commits a mortal sin unless the person is in danger of death. The archbishop said those who knowingly separate themselves from the church are automatically excommunicated and he was obliged to declare their excommunication after ascertaining that those involved fully understood what they were doing. He explained his decision in his weekly column in the Dec. 16 issue of the St. Louis Review, the archdiocesan newspaper.

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