It's the latest chapter in the long-standing dispute between members of St. Stanislaus Kostka Church and the St. Louis Catholic Archdiocese. Except Archdiocese officials are sitting this one out.Roger Krasnicki, the former church member and board legal counsel who recruited Father Marek Bozek after Archbishop Raymond Burke removed priests from the parish, will ask board members Sunday to remove Bozek.
Burke removed the priests in 2004 following a dispute when St. Stanislaus officials refused to subject the church to the financial oversight of the Archdiocese, like other Catholic parishes do.
"I feel very bad about it, because I'm one of the people responsible for bringing Father Bozek up here," said Krasnicki. But Krasnicki maintains Bozek has taken a turn away from Roman Catholic teachings.
"You know, he's espoused the ordination of women, and actually participated in the ordination of women. Now maybe there's some historical evidence that women were priests in the early church and maybe this needs to be discussed in the church. But as it stands today, popes have been very clear - No women priests. Jesus was a man, the priests should be a man.
"He says everybody is welcome to come to communion. Well that just doesn't hold in the Roman Catholic Church. It doesn't hold in a lot of Lutheran Churches and other religions, as well."
Krasnicki acknowledges Bozek is popular, something that is apparent in talking to people who now attend services.
"And there's no denying that Father is a wonderful speaker, a very charismatic individual," Krasnicki said.
"But he's able to seduce people to agree to things that if they've had time to think about them, they wouldn't agree to. What he's doing, really, is making it extremely difficult for those directors who were excommunicated, in their appeal to Rome. Archbishop Burke says we're a schismatic church because we disobeyed him. Well now we're going to be painted with the brush that Father Bozek is carrying... schismatic because we want to do things that are heretical to Roman Catholic teachings. And although we've had our problems with the Archbishop, and still do... we are trying to work through it through the system. We've appealed to the Vatican. We haven't heard from that appeal yet."
Krasnicki was not excommunicated, but he no longer attends services at St. Stanislaus. Burke stripped the church of it's Roman Catholic designation.
"No, I don't go to Mass there because I think the Mass, the way Father is presenting it, is a sacrilege," Krasnicki said.
Krasnicki feels betrayed by Bozek. "Bozek said, 'I'm coming to St. Stanislaus, I have no agenda. The only thing I want to do is bring the sacraments to the Polish people who have been denied the sacraments by the Archbishop.' And I took him at his word, on that. I think he was holding back then. I think he has a grand sense of himself and where he wants to go. What he would do in the process is drag an entire parish with him. Because the people are following the man, not the religion, not what we were taught. It's deviant."
After Saturday afternoon services, in the sacristy of the church, Father Marek Bozek was asked what he thought about efforts to remove him.
Bozek said, "Well, first of all, I will say what my teacher in college said -- there is no such thing as bad publicity. So every time someone talks about St. Stanislaus it brings us more people. We are happy for that. On the other hand, I do realize that there are a few parishioners who are not happy with the vision of the church that a vast majority supports."
Still dressed in the traditional clothing a priest wears during Mass, Bozek was asked if he is practicing Roman Catholicism, at St. Stanislaus.
"Do I look Roman Catholic?" asked Bozek. "We say if someone looks, sounds, and smells like a Roman Catholic, he must be Roman Catholic. Yes, we do. What I am doing, I am trying to distinguish two different things. In the Roman Catholic teaching, we have the articles of faith, which we call dogmas. And those are unchangeable. And we very firmly believe in each one of them. On the other hand there are issues of discipline in the church, which have changed through centuries many times, back and forth. The best example is celibacy. Another example... who can come to communion, and who can not come. Those are the issues that are not dogmas, they are changeable. And we at St. Stanislaus believe they should be changed."
Bozek was asked about the fact that he has been excommunicated. "I have never tried to hide this."
But what impact does his excommunication have on the services he presents at St. Stanislaus?
"Well it helps us to grow, for sure. It brings us publicity. And I believe it gives us a space of freedom that many other priests don't have."
"We have over 20 weddings scheduled for this year and we are growing as never before. I think what is happening here will be one day described as a role model for different Catholic churches."
Bozek was asked whether it was important to those brides and grooms that their weddings be recognized by the Roman Catholic Church.
"At the first meeting with each of those couples I tell them I am an excommunicated priest," Bozek said. "I have no good standing with the Archdiocese of St. Louis. And they say, 'That's why we are here. We want you to marry us because of what you stand for.' Those are the couples that believe that women and men are equal. Those are the couples who believe that if their son happens to be gay, or their daughter a lesbian, they will welcome them and love them as much as if they were heterosexuals. So people come here because of what we stand for... not despite."
Krasnicki says he would like to return to St. Stanislaus someday, but only without the renegade priest that he recruited to come there.
"I think there are other possibilities that do exist," said Krasnicki. "I'm going to be in contact with another order of priests who have done work with other bishops throughout the world who had problem parishes, like St. Stanislaus. And maybe, with God's help, it'll happen."
He recognizes Bozek has many supporters.
"They could have a thousand, we could have two. It wouldn't make any difference."
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