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I have moved this post to the top, so that it doesn't become buried or lost.
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This is another response to the Post Dispatch's biased reporting of the St Stanislaus issue.
The following letter comes from one of the displaced parishioners of St Stanislaus who was interviewed by Aisha Sultan, the reporter for the Post Dispatch for her recent article here. This man has been a parishioner at St Stanislaus for some 22 years. He sent me his letter to the Post Dispatch, which I graciously accepted. Since the chances of the Post printing a letter exposing the biased reporting of its journalist is unlikely to be printed within its own pages, I feel privileged to be able to post it here.
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To the Editor
Thank you for quoting some of the facts, that I gave your reporter Aisha Sultan during our conversation on March 13, in article "250 attend Mass backing (Archbishop) Burke in St. Stanislaus Kostka Fight" issued in March 14, 2005 St. Louis Post-Dispatch. However, I am a little disappointed that she did not make any mention, in her article, of any of the facts that I emphasized repeatedly during our conversation regarding the history of our parish.
I mentioned to her that our parish had two Masses on each Sunday, one in Polish and the other in English. The Polish Mass was attended by 100 to 120 parishioners each Sunday. The English Mass was attended by 20 to 40 parishioners. As a point of reference, the Polish Masses in our temporary church at St. John the Apostle and Evangelist Church are attended by 80 to 100 parishioners. This number roughly constitutes around 80% the Polish speaking St. Stanislaus Kostka Parishioners that regularly attended services at the St. Stanislaus Kostka Church. Overall the 80 to 100 parishioners that attend Mass at St. John the Apostle and Evangelist Church represent approximately 60% of all parishioners who actively participated in the weekly religious life of our parish.
These are the facts that have not been told by the directors. Most of the board supporters did not actively participate in the weekly religious life of our parish. Most of these supporters visited our church 2 to 4 times a year - for social events. These are the facts that I asked her to include in her article.
Case in point of this is the example of one the most vocal of these supporters [of the board], Mr. Richard Bach, who she cites in her article. He, himself, is a member of a different parish and did not regularly attend our Masses for as long as I can remember (over 20 years). For all these years, he did not need the St. Stanislaus Church, to which now, he is so attached. In reality, these 'so-called' friends and supporters, along with the board of directors, are hijacking the St. Stanislaus Parish, week in and week out, from the parishioners of St. Stanislaus Church. This is the story that she was suppose to tell.
My biggest disappointment in her article is a distorted fact about St Stanislaus Church that is constantly repeated by every media outlet. This being the following: "St.Stanislaus ..... has been controlled by its own board since 1891." This is a lie. If the directors had legally controlled our parish for so many years, why did they secretly and illegally changed the original by-law in 2001? This fact can easily be verified by reading the original deed and the original by-laws on the Archdiocesan website. The original deed was made out to the Polish Roman Catholic St. Stanislaus Parish - not to the board of directors. From the beginning the parish was legally controlled by the Pastor and the Archdiocese not by the board of directors. The Pastor always was the president of the board, and was always legally responsible for the finances and the administration of the parish. This was true until the illegal change of the by-laws took place in 2001. The present dispute reached critical mass in August 2004 when the board of directors formally took all financial control of our Parish’s assets from our Pastor. These are the facts that need to be told.
Sincerely,
E. Brzyski
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I find the information about Mr. Richard Bach extremely interesting considering the statements he has made to the press for the past several months. Frankly, I was under the impression he has been attending St. Stanislaus religiously for the past 40 years - since he was baptized....Evidently, I will need to review the audio clips and other information to determine why I was led to believe this apparent fabrication.
A Special Thanks to Mr. Brzyski who is helping to expose the truth!
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