The Pastor and Parishoners of St. Stanislaus Parish
Raymond Burke became St. Louis' archbishop in 2004 and almost immedialtely began demanding that the parish fall under the same system as other parishes in which the archbishop controls their finances.
Because the parish refused to do this he took away their priests but in November a new priest,Rev. Marek Bozek, came to the parish and was hired as their new pastor.
"He has taken this job to nurture the congregation" Anthony Kaminski, a parishoner said, "He deemed that we were ignored and threatened by the bishop and he came to the rescue. I admire him."
Unfortunately for the parish, their pastor was excommunicated and can no longer celebrate mass with them.
I see this priest and the parishoners as models of faith. They simply wanted to celebrate mass and worship God on their own terms. Then Archbishop Burke wanted to stop this because they weren't doing things his way. This reminds a lot of the story of Jesus and his disciples. I'm not trying to say that Rev. Marek Bozek is like a modern day Jesus but he defenitely has faith and this whole story has a lot of connections to the story of Jesus.
The disciples were being persecuted by the church leaders like the Scribes and the Pharisees. This is just like the parishoners being bullied by Burke. Then the persecuted people found a leader. this was Jesus for the ancient Jews and Bozek for the parishoners of St. Stanislaus. This new leader did things differently than the church officials and so this caused the church officials to use their power to permanently stop the new leader from doing their work. In Jesus' case this meant crucifixion and for Bozek excommunication.
Just like Jesus and the disciples showed faith in their situation, so did St. Stanislaus and its parishoners and pastor.
"Defiant Priest joins St. Stanislaus" by Tim Townsend
12/03/2005
"Board and Priest have been excommunicated" by Tim Townsend
12/16/2005
"Missouri Archbishop cuts ties to Polish Parish" ny Betsy Taylor
12/16/05
