Options after excommunication

The six St. Stanislaus board members and their new priest, the Rev. Marek Bozek, can repent. If they chose to, they would simply have to approach Burke, admit their mistakes and promise to be obedient. Burke then would have to decide whether to remit the penalty.

"The only other option they have is to petition Rome to revoke or amend the decree." said Charles M. Wilson, executive director of the St. Joseph Foundation, which has represented excommunicated Catholics in appeals to the Vatican.

Wilson said that because the board members and Bozek are accused of schism, he believed they would appeal to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - the Holy See's orthodoxy watchdog arm.