http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10603460/

Excommunicated priest holds �illicit� Mass
Hundreds attend service in St. Louis despite Church objections
The Rev. Marek Bozek offers prayers during his first Christmas Eve Mass as the paster of St. Stanisiaus Kostka Church in St. Louis on Saturday. Bozek was excommunicated by the Catholic Church after he left his previous parish without his bishop�s permission.


Updated: 5:11 p.m. ET Dec. 25, 2005
ST. LOUIS - At least 1,500 people attended Christmas Eve Mass presided by an excommunicated Roman Catholic priest, despite warnings from the archbishop that participating would be a mortal sin.

The Rev. Marek Bozek left his previous parish without his bishop�s permission and was hired by St. Stanislaus Kostka Church earlier this month. As a result, Bozek and the six-member lay board were excommunicated last week by Archbishop Raymond Burke for committing an act of schism.

Burke said it would be a mortal sin for anyone to participate in a Mass celebrated by a priest who was excommunicated � the Catholic Church�s most severe penalty. Burke, who couldn�t stop the Mass, said it would be �valid� but �illicit.�

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Despite the warning, Catholics and non-Catholics from as far as Oregon and Washington, D.C., filled the church. An overflow crowd viewed the Mass by closed circuit TV in an adjoining parish center.

�I�m not worried about mortal sin,� said worshipper Matt Morrison, 50. �I�ll take a stand for what I believe is right.�

Many wore large red buttons reading �Save St. Stanislaus,� and said they wanted to offer solidarity to a parish they believe has been wronged.

�It was magic�
When Bozek entered from the rear of the church, the congregation rose and greeted him with thunderous applause.

�It was magic,� said JoAnne La Sala of St. Louis, a self-described lapsed Catholic. �You could feel the spirit of the people.�

The penalty was the latest wrinkle in a long dispute over control of the parish�s $9.5 million in assets.



The parish�s property and finances have been managed by a lay board of directors for more than a century. Burke has sought to make the parish conform to the same legal structure as other parishes in the diocese. As a result, he removed both the parish�s priests in 2004.

Bozek, a Pole who arrived in the U.S. five years ago, said he agonized about leaving his previous parish but wanted to help a church that had been deprived of the sacraments for 17 months.

To be Polish is to be Catholic, he said, and to be Catholic is to receive the sacraments.

�I will give them the sacrament of reconciliation, the Eucharist. I will visit the sick and bury the dead,� he said. �I will laugh with those who are laughing and cry with those who are crying.�

Bozek said he doesn�t believe that receiving sacraments at St. Stanislaus, especially Holy Communion, puts a Catholic at risk of mortal sin, in which the soul could suffer eternal damnation.

The Rev. Charles Bouchard, moral theology professor and president of Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, said Burke was following canon law �to the letter� in excommunicating Bozek and the board.

But some argue that St. Stanislaus� more than century-old governing structure holds the same authority as church law and the bishop lacked merit for imposing excommunication, he said.

�Whether the parties should have reached this impasse in the first place,� Bouchard said, �is another matter.�

I love how the church throws "mortal sin" at people who disagree with them.

Whatever happened to not judging people?

I thought a mortal sin was a conscientious effort to sin and thus insulting the Holy Spirit?

Was it because that was the worst thing they could think to throw at him in the heat of anger?

I wonder if it went down like this:

They were like, "How dare you - Go to your room you Mortal Sinner!". And he was like, "Sticks and stones may break my bones but mortal sins will never hurt me!"?

"Disagree?"

Eric, this isn't a simple disagreement. You can't have priests coming and going on assignments as they please without the approval of their bishop.

I agree that slapping "mortal sin" on those participating is a bit over the top, but let's not minimize the seriousness of what's going on, here.

Eric:

One bit of news coverage over something like this is probably going to fail to cover both sides adequately. While I agree that charging the entire congregation with "mortal sin" is harsh, we don't really know, from the article you cited, what the conversations have been over the years between the two parties.

You are both right. I am thinking now that for the Priest to just pack and leave there might have been some other issues at stake here.

I am wondering what it was the church was saying about people who attended the mass. In one part of the article I thought I read that the Mass was just "illicit" and another part I read "mortal sin". Well which was it?

I suppose we set aside the proper role of the bishop while thinking and acting like Americans. I appreciate the remark made by one commentator who noted that, perhaps, all of this could have been resolved prior to any penalties set by the bishop. However, I sense that this did happen and the real problem is a century old and set in the concrete of culture and lost obedience.

Welcome Pater. On various threads you'll see this tension between individuation and authority of various types being wrestled with, especially in terms of the Church as "obedience," and such are considered against the post-modern backdrop. Somebody recently made a comment about what that word means in Latin . . . .


Here's a beautiful link, and excerpt describing the essence of obedience (beautiful, provocative image takes us way beyond what most of us probably think is the limited, anachronistic meaning of the term):

http://www.cmswr.org/spiritual...ctions/Obedience.htm

Excerpt:


1. Ob= the prefix meaning �towards.�

2. Oedire= �to hear.�

3. Literal meaning= �to hear or listen towards.� In other words, to listen and respond to what has been listened to.

4. Religious meaning= to hear God�s word and act accordingly.


Reflection: One thing we notice about this figure of obedience in the painting is its movement. Her movement can be seen as a going out of self in seeking union with her Beloved. She appears to be outwardly directed in a determined movement of her whole being out of herself in love and service, but inwardly rooted in a conscious, unbroken attentiveness to the indwelling of God in her soul.

To be able to hear in the sense of what we mean here by obedience, we have to be responsive to something outside ourselves- there is an ecstatic element to it, a going out of self toward another to seek union. Someone self-absorbed, self-preoccupied, concentrated on self cannot hear, to hear in the sense of being directed to the Other, receptive to hear what the Beloved wants, with ears that are intent on pleasing Him.

In the etymology of the word obedience, the meaning is �to hear or listen towards�- the word �towards� implies a response to an inner movement of grace which directs our mind, heart and will, our whole life towards God in a �Yes, Father� response to His will.

This ecstatic aspect of the human person is rooted in the mystery of the inwardly self-giving Trinity- a ceaseless giving and receiving. We participate in Trinitarian love by this inward movement towards God in obedience. As the Father and the Son are a �being for� each other in the unity of the Holy Spirit, so is our response to God in obedience an action of loving fidelity, a total surrender, a complete oblation of our whole being to God. Obedience is the experience of Christ in me loving the Father.

When we look at Christ�s obedience, He held nothing back becoming obedient unto death. Christ does not speak or act from Himself but from Another, the Father. This shows an attitude of mind fixated on the Other, an attitude of filial love which moves Him to wholehearted submission to the saving plan of the Father. It was not through the act of crucifixion itself that Christ redeemed the world, but by His obedience to the Father. It was in His passion that Christ lived obedience to its utmost. When we look at the crucifix we see what obedience looks like. Obedience as a movement toward God is shown in Christ�s last words on the Cross: �Into your hands I commend my spirit.� His final act of obedience was handing over the only thing He had left- His Spirit (the Holy Spirit) - though this is what He did His entire earthly life- a sending back, a handing over to the Father. This is the ecstatic nature of communion. Christ sends the Spirit back to the Father- the Spirit of Love, the Spirit of God which belongs to its nature to be sent- to go out of self, moved in love by the will of another."

Hi Pater. My problem is that The Church calls this a mortal sin.

I think that is a bit harsh and leaves me wondering how they know when the Holy Spirit is offended or not.

The Catholic church has rules and I can understand that. But when it comes to the state of someone's soul I believe that is in God's hands alone.