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Wednesday 11 March 2009

Catholic Parish in St Louis Becomes Congregationalist Church

Whatever they may call themselves....

St. Stanislaus, under the "leadership of Marek Bozek seems to have transmogrified into something quite other than what those stubborn old Polacks were intending.

Let us pray that the Father grants all His prodigals the grace to see their way home, (and the older siblings the grace to be.... well, gracious about it.)
ST. LOUIS: A priest who defied his Roman Catholic bishop in 2005 to become pastor of a largely Polish-American parish at odds with the archdiocese has been stripped of his priesthood....
But Bozek said Monday he will not leave St. Stanislaus and will take his orders from a reformed Catholic bishop, who granted him temporary priestly faculties last year in anticipation of the Vatican's decision.
At a Monday night news conference at St. Stanislaus where he was joined by dozens of parishioners, Bozek said he was disappointed by the move but will continue his ministry and offer valid Catholic sacraments.

In 2005, Bozek and six lay parish board members were excommunicated for their alleged act of "schism." Four were reconciled with the church in June.

Bozek has attracted divorced and gay formerly disenfranchised Catholics to St. Stanislaus and repelled some of the longtime Polish families who hired him in 2005.

He said the parish continues to grow even though it was "suppressed" or no longer recognized by the archdiocese in December 2005.

He said he will continue to minister there as long as the parish wants to employ him.

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