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St. Stanislaus Kostka Church
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St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in St. Louis, Missouri
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| Location: | 1413 North 20th Street, St. Louis, Missouri |
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| Built: | 1880 |
| Architect: | Wessbecher & Hummel |
| NRHP Reference#: | 79003635 |
| Added to NRHP: | July 10, 1979 |
St. Stanislaus Kostka Church is a former Catholic Church parish located in the city of St. Louis, Missouri. It was established as a Catholic parish in 1880 to serve the Polish community in the Archdiocese of St. Louis. It is considered to be the best example of the opulent 'Polish Cathedral style' of architecture west of the Mississippi River. The church is notable for a highly publicized dispute over control of the parish and its assets between the church's lay board of directors and the Archdiocese of St. Louis. In December 2005, the former Archbishop Raymond Leo Burke declared the parish's board members and priest, Marek Bozek, excommunicated and announced his intention to suppress the parish, meaning that it would be disbanded, with the likelihood of the premises being sold. The church responded by holding a Christmas Eve Mass attended by 1,500-2,000 people.[1] The church continues to be maintained and run as a not-for-profit corporation by church parishioners. In 2010 a settlement offer from the Archdiocese of St. Louis was rejected by a divided congregation.[2]
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In 1878, the Archdiocese of St. Louis authorized the construction of a parish to serve the city's growing Polish Catholic community. In 1880, construction began on St. Stanislaus Kostka. The church was built just north of Downtown St. Louis, in a neighborhood that at the time was home to a large number of Polish immigrants. Under a land deed signed by Archbishop Peter Kenrick in 1891, the parish property was assigned to a corporation under a pastor and lay board members to be continually appointed by the Archbishop (cf. Deed and Charter & Bylaws of 1891).
In 1928, the church was damaged by a fire which destroyed the original center dome of the structure, but the other damage was repaired. In 1969, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, Archbishop of Kraków, who would later become Pope John Paul II, visited the parish during a trip to the United States. The building was listed as a City Landmark in 1976 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
The church continued to serve the Polish Catholic community in St. Louis even as the community dispersed from the surrounding neighborhood and the area deteriorated. By the 1970s, the parish buildings were severely deteriorated. The parishioners undertook a large scale restoration of the church building and began acquiring land surrounding the church. Later improvements included the construction of a Polish Heritage Center. By 2005, the church assets included 8 acres (32,000 m2) of land, and the board of trustees estimated the total value of the parish assets at $9.5 million.
The controversy, involving both the control of the temporal goods of the parish and the spiritual authority of the archbishop, focused on whether the property and monetary assets would be controlled by a pastor appointed by the archbishop, which is the canonical norm, or by a lay board of directors who renounced the archbishop's authority over the members of the board. The controversy began under Cardinal John J. Glennon and continued under the late Cardinal Joseph Ritter and his successors, the deceased Archbishop John May, Cardinal Justin Rigali, now of Philadelphia, and most recently under Archbishop Emeritus Raymond Leo Burke, who is now Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura and a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church. The present Archbishop of St. Louis, Robert James Carlson, is endeavoring to find an adequate compromise that satisfies canon law and all concerned parties, but the breakaway members rejected his latest proposal, though efforts are ongoing.
The current structure of the parish derives from one created in 1891. The current parish board has taken the position that the purpose of Burke's actions was to take control of the assets of the parish for primarily economic reasons. They note that the parish had sustained and restored itself without financial assistance from the Archdiocese and claimed that Burke intended to close the parish once he had control of it.
The archdiocese alleges that the lay board of directors, in the early 1980s, without permission from Archbishop May, changed the original 1891 bylaws, which stipulated that the lay board was to function solely as an advisory body to the pastor and thus under the archbishop (cf. the Plenary Councils of Baltimore). In the bylaws as changed, the authority of the pastor was revoked, putting all control of the parish in the hands of the lay board. Therefore, not long after his appointment, Burke mandated that the structure of the parish once again conform to canon law. In response, the lay board formally appealed to the Holy See. That appeal was denied. However, the archdiocese does not dispute that the deed to the church property itself belongs not to the archdiocese but to the parish corporation; what is disputed is the membership of that corporation, and how they are to be chosen.
In August 2004 Burke removed both priests from the parish and transferred the Polish ministry to St. John the Apostle and Evangelist parish across from St. Louis Union Station. When the priests left the parish, they took with them much of the property of the parish, including the hymnals, missals, song books, and parish records. In January 2005 Burke threatened the members of the parish board of directors with an interdict if they did not comply with his instructions by February 4, 2005. On February 10, 2005, the lay board had still not complied, and the archbishop issued an interdict against the board members, stating that they "knowingly, deliberately and publicly damaged seriously the unity of the Church."
As of February 25, 2005, Burke's reorganization plan for parishes in south St. Louis City permanently changed the personal parish for Polish Catholics in St. Louis to the nearby church of St. Agatha, the move to which was completed on July 1, 2005.
In December 2005, the lay board announced plans to hire a priest of the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau, the Rev. Marek B. Bozek, who was thereupon suspended by his bishop, the Most Reverend John Joseph Leibrecht, for leaving his post without permission. In response to the action of the board, on December 16, 2005, Burke declared that Father Bozek and the lay board members (Dr. Joseph Rudawski and Messrs. John Baras, William Bialczak, Edward Florek, Stanley Novak, and John Robert Zabielski), by their actions, were guilty of the ecclesiastical crime, or delict, of schism from the Roman Catholic Church, an offense to which is automatically attached the penalty of excommunication. In a letter to Catholics in the Archdiocese, he warned the faithful that they would be risking grave sin if they knowingly attempt to receive sacraments from a priest who is in formal schism; Archbishop Burke also announced his intention to suppress the parish. Following this announcement, a sizeable crowd attended the first Mass to be celebrated by the new pastor, on Christmas Eve 2005.[1] Subsequently, on December 29, 2005, Archbishop Burke canonically suppressed St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish, since it now operates independently of the Archdiocese of St. Louis.
On May 15, 2008, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a decree rejecting the recourse filed in March 2006 by Rev. Bozek and the other excommunicated Board members against the decrees of excommunication issued by Archbishop Burke on December 15, 2005. This decision on the part of the Vatican ratified the excommunications on the basis of the commission of schism being "evident" on the part of the excommunicated Board members.
In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI dismissed Rev. Marek Bozek from the clerical state.[3][4]
The Archdiocese of St. Louis issued the following statement on July 23, 2008:[5]
Mrs. Bernice Krauze, Mr. Stanley Rozanski, and Mr. Robert Zabielski, members of the previous Board of Directors of Saint Stanislaus Parish Corporation, met last month (June 10) with Archbishop Raymond L. Burke to be reconciled fully with the Catholic Church. They are once again in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church and are no longer under any censure. Edward Florek was reconciled fully with the Roman Catholic Church in 2008 and is in full communion. He is no longer under any censure.
Since then, the three have joined other ex-parishioners of the former Saint Stanislaus Kostka parish in filing a lawsuit against the Saint Stanislaus Parish Corporation. The lawsuit is asking for the corporation to adhere to the 1891 Bylaws, to which the parish and the Archdiocese of St. Louis had agreed. If the lawsuit is successful, the Archdiocese of St. Louis is prepared to appoint a Catholic priest, Rev. Michael Marchlewski, S.J., to Saint Stanislaus as administrator.
In 2010 an offer to settle the lawsuit was made by the archdiocese. The offer would have left control of the property and assets in the congregation but brought the parish back into control of the archdiocese. However there was no guarantee the parish would not be closed in the future. The excommunicated priest, Marek Bozek, whose liberal views have become an issue, would have been required to depart. The settlement was rejected 257 to 185.
Under Marek Bozek's leadership the church, in a decaying St. Louis neighborhood, has grown to 500 despite 200 of the original parishioners leaving. Bozek's non-orthodox views include allowing priests to marry and permitting women and homosexuals to be ordained. Transmogrification of the issues from property to doctrinal issues has alienated traditional parish members and attracted new progressive congregants.[2]