...there was the May 29 Washington Post “news” story on Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis. Burke, according to the Post’s gimlet-eyed reporter, has “roiled the Church in St. Louis” because he is “adhering to Vatican orthodoxy endorsed by Pope Benedict XVI,” a posture that has caused some St. Louis Catholics to “complain that the Church under his direction seems out of touch.” That’s a lot of confusion in a few phrases. The Catholic Church’s teaching on the impaired ecclesiastical communion of Catholic legislators who facilitate abortion (like Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill) is not a “Vatican position” that takes its force from being “endorsed by Pope Benedict XVI.” It’s settled moral conviction, based on philosophical convictions about the first principles of justice that are open to public scrutiny.The Post Dispatch, generally it seems, persists in adding to the confusion when it comes to the Church.
Things quickly got worse, however. For whom did the Post choose to illustrate, by contrast, Archbishop Burke’s being “out of touch”? Father Marek Bozek of St. Louis’s boldly schismatic St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, whom the Post presented as the paladin of a new, “open” Catholicism. The Post failed to mention, however, that Bozek had been run out of a seminary in Poland; had gotten himself ordained in a small Missouri diocese while someone wasn’t paying attention; and has subsequently been having fun wearing witch hats as complements to his Mass vestments. Other peculiarities at the parish could easily have been adduced. So is St. Stanislaus Kostka Church the embodiment of “open Catholicism,” or a gathering of schismatic malcontents? You make the call — but do it on the op-ed page, not on A2.It's a group of schismatic malcontents - there is no question about that.
Weigel's complete article is here.
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