Archbishop Burke Issues Interdict to St. Stanislaus Board

St. Louis' archbishop followed through on his move to deny Roman Catholic sacraments to board members of a largely Polish parish, the latest development in a long-simmering dispute over control of the parish.

The six board members of St. Louis' St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Church received via courier letters of interdict from Archbishop Raymond Burke on Thursday night, said parishioner Richard Bach, serving as a parish spokesman.

That means those recipients may not receive Communion or other sacraments. Board members have said they plan to ignore Burke's move.

Why not? They have exalted themselves and refused even the directives of the Church of which they claim to be members.

Archbishop Burke describes an interdict:

When a member of the Church has knowingly, deliberately and publicly damaged seriously the unity of the Church, his or her bishop has the pastoral responsibility to impose a sanction, in order to call the offending person to repentance and to restore the unity of the Church.

If Church authority were not to address a public violation of Church unity, then scandal would be caused by those who present themselves as devout Catholics, when, in fact, they are not in full communion with the Church.

In the case of St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish, the offense committed by the members of the board of directors of the civil corporation of the parish is the public refusal to obey legitimate Church authority, namely the Holy Father’s Congregation for the Clergy and the archbishop of St. Louis, and the incitement of others to such disobedience. The applicable canons of the Code of Canon Law are canon 1371, paragraph 2, and canon 1373.

The sanction of interdict, as defined in canon 1332, prohibits the member of the faithful: 1) from any ministerial part in the celebration of the Mass or any other ceremonies of worship; and 2) from celebrating the sacraments and sacramentals, and from receiving the sacraments. Interdict does not prohibit the offending party from assisting at Mass or other sacred rites. Receiving the sacraments, above all the Holy Eucharist, requires that a person be in full communion with the Church. For that reason, the sanction prohibits the reception of the sacraments.

The censure binds the member of the faithful everywhere and until the offending person has been reconciled with the Church. The censure is lifted when the offending party has repented of his or her disobedience and has submitted to Church authority. In the case of the interdict imposed upon the members of the board of directors of the civil corporation of St. Stanislaus Kostka, the archbishop of St. Louis has the authority to lift the censure and must lift the censure, as soon as the offending party has made known his or her repentance to the archbishop.

Archbishop Raymond L. Burke

May our Lord open the hearts and minds of all those in defiance and bring them back to His Church, to His Fold, to be in complete union with Him and His Church.