St. Cronan's pastoral team "decimated" after women's ordination

So says the headline of today's Post Dispatch article by Tim Townsend. Some say that St Cronan parish should have probably been closed long ago, except that others have speculated that keeping it open kept a number of dissenters together, in effect, containing a good deal of the poison of heterodoxy in one place.

When Seán Collins resigned from St. Cronan Church last week, it left the Catholic parish in St. Louis with just a third of its pastoral team. Sister Louise Lears had given the parish her resignation late last month just before St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke placed her under the canonical penalty of interdict, a lesser form of excommunication.

Two-thirds of the "Co-pastors" are gone...and many Catholics would ask if that's a bad thing?

The resignations of his pastoral deputies left the Rev. Gerry Kleba, St. Cronan's pastor, in a bind. The church — in the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood — is engaged in 20 ministries, many of which reflect its social justice emphasis. "These were two dynamic and gifted people who were great blessings to the church, and one left under unjust pressure, the other of his own volition," said Kleba....

Gerry Kleba, a priest of the archdiocese, appears to have problems telling the truth about this matter. The 'pressure', as he calls it, was hardly unjust. Lears partcipated at the faux ordination of two delusional priestettes, presided over by an equally delusional woman who claims to be a Catholic bishop, Patricia Fresen. Lears continued to reject a definitive truth of the Church. She was also guilty of the obstinate rejection, after written admonition, of the truth of the faith that it is impossible for a woman to receive ordination to the Sacred Priesthood. (Source) It would have been unjust for her and the Church to let her continue in her errors.

It's a disgrace and a scandal that Fr Kleba persists in his disapproval of such actions by lawful authority, but then, this isn't unusual for him.

"This church has been purified by fire over the last eight months, and we're a much stronger, more understanding, compassionate group of people than we were before..."

"Purified by fire?" It;'s a "hotbed" of dissent, that's for sure.

St. Cronan has been known for years as an activist, engaged parish, full of socially progressive Catholics, some of whom are former priests and nuns, many of whom take issue with one or another aspect of Catholic doctrine or teaching.

"Progressive" Catholics - too often seen as heretics for their open rebellion against Church teaching. And Cronan's has former nuns and priests as well as others who seem to reject doctrines of the Church.

In an interview, Kleba said he believed the reason he was summoned to meet with Burke was to persuade him to oust Lears. "He wanted me to fire Louise, and I told him that since the case was not yet decided, she was innocent until proven guilty," he said.

Kleba must think he has a new lease on life since Archbishop Burke is no longer the archbishop...otherwise, he would not be so bold. Maybe the new archbishop will handle the matter?

In an interview earlier this week, Collins said he quit St. Cronan because he felt he'd seen such injustice in the treatment of Lears that he was no longer comfortable taking a paycheck from the archdiocese and needed to be able to speak publicly. He said the archbishop's treatment of Lears represented "a complete failure of pastoral care...."

It is not "pastoral" to let others persist in their grave sin. Collins' understanding of pastoral care was probably acquired under Kleba's tutelage, making it flawed and prone to error.

As the only member of St. Cronan's pastoral team left, Kleba chose to focus on the positive. "I'm really confident that there's going to be a new archbishop here who's more pastoral," he said. "I think St. Cronan is going to flourish."

We pray Kleba is wrong...This parish needs to be closed and those who follow the heterodoxy and errors passing as Catholicism need our prayers for their conversion.