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Termed a "locking of horns," the interim head of the St Louis church is moving to consolidate fund-raising oversight for the 550,000-member archdiocese's Catholic Charities... and the fallout hasn't been pretty. Bishop Robert Hermann has given the board members an ultimatum: Agree with his plan, or get out. The archdiocese says that it has talked with Catholic Charities about its "day-to-day operations" and that it wants to better coordinate fundraising with the agency. But, at least one board member claims the dispute is really about the archdiocese trying to seize control of the nonprofit and how it is run....

RiverFrontTimes: "A little over a year ago, 26-year-old Jessica Rowley shattered the stained-glass ceiling, so to speak, by being ordained a Catholic priest. Now the St. Louisan is on the verge of giving birth to her first child, and a Washington, D.C.-based group that advocates for women’s ordination says that makes Rowley the world’s first pregnant Catholic priest." Her husband is a United Church of Christ minister. So which church will the baby be baptized in? "That's a good question," says Rowley, with a laugh. "It's a topic of conversation in our home a lot. We're going to baptize...

Ironically enough, in the city where the "Communion Wars" that've roiled American Catholicism for the last four years saw their birth, the Democratic nominee was greeted by his largest domestic crowd of this campaign yesterday -- 100,000, according to police estimates, under St Louis' Gateway Arch. It being the "Rome of the West" -- where Catholics make up over a quarter of the metro-area population... and the faithful await a successor to the Holy See's new "chief justice" Archbishop Raymond Burke -- it's worth noting that reports of mass sanctions have yet to emerge. But the gathering came just...

Aug. 18--In the minutes before the farewell Mass for Archbishop Raymond Burke on Sunday, well-wishers hurried to find what few seats were left inside the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica. On the cathedral's steps, the Knights of Columbus, the Knights and Ladies of Peter Claver, the Knights and Ladies of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem and the Knights and Dames of Malta, lined up to begin the processional. Their swords gleamed in the afternoon sun. Sweat dripped below their white-tufted chapeaus.Inside, nuns in white and blue habits sat next to little girls with black lace head coverings....

ST. LOUIS, Missouri, JULY 28, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Three leaders of a former St. Louis parish who incurred excommunication for hiring a suspended priest have been reconciled with the Church. According to a statement last week from the Archdiocese of St. Louis, Bernice Krauze, Stanley Rozanski and Robert Zabielski, members of the Board of Directors of St. Stanislaus Parish Corporation, met in June with Archbishop Raymond Burke to be reconciled fully with the Church. "They are once again in full communion with the Catholic Church and are no longer under any censure," the archdiocese reported. The St. Stanislaus Parish Corporation is...

Breaking, big, news: The St. Louis Archdiocese filed suit today against the St. Stanislaus Kostka church in an attempt to regain control of the former Polish parish. Six parishioners, including three recent board members, joined the archdiocese in the suit. They are asking a St. Louis judge to void any changes to the St. Stanislaus' bylaws since 2001 and give the archbishop the authority to appoint a pastor and board there. Last month, the St. Stanislaus board voted 4-3 to dissolve itself and allow parishioners to elect a new board at its annual meeting in August. Eight St. Stanislaus...

ST. LOUIS, Missouri, JULY 4, 2008 (Zenit.org). Parish music directors -- and congregations -- in the Archdiocese of St. Louis soon will benefit from Archbishop Raymond Burke’s recent initiative: The Institute for Sacred Music. Archbishop Burke, who has since been named to head the Apostolic Signature, the Church's supreme court, appointed Benedictine Father Samuel Weber as the first director of the new institute earlier this year.Father Weber is a professor in the divinity school of Wake Forest University in North Carolina and also a monk of the St. Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana. In Part 1 of this interview with ZENIT,...

CNA).- Archbishop of St. Louis Raymond L. Burke will ordain nine men to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of St. Louis on Saturday at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis. It is the largest ordination class for the archdiocese since 1987.Some credit Archbishop Burke for the boom in seminarians.  A frequent visitor to the seminary, the archbishop sometimes drops by unannounced for lunches with the students."He's the center and the core of this whole thing," archdiocesan vocations director Rev. Michael Butler said to the St. Louis Post Dispatch.Archbishop Burke explained that he decided vocations would be one of his priorities. ...

St. Louis, Apr 7, 2008 / 10:53 pm (CNA).- An accomplished musician and authority on the Church’s musical heritage will move to St. Louis, Missouri to head the Archdiocese of St. Louis’ new Institute of Sacred Worship, the St. Louis Review reports.On Friday Archbishop of St. Louis Raymond L. Burke announced that Father Samuel A. Weber, OSB, is being appointed as the first director of the institute.The new sacred music office will, with Father Webb’s help, offer parish music directors and choirs several educational programs, including courses covering: Gregorian Chant; singing the Mass in English, especially the Entrance Antiphon, the...

ST. LOUIS - Comments made by Saint Louis University menb's basketball coach Rick Majerus have him in hot water with Archbishop Raymond Burke. Burke said Tuesday that he will ask officials of SLU to take "appropriate action" against its basketball coach, who said in a television interview that he supports abortion rights. One of the game’s winningest coaches, Majerus made the comment at a weekend rally for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. Burke declined to say what the action against Majerus should be, saying that was a decision for the Jesuit university. But he said the coach is a...

ST. LOUIS — Archbishop Raymond Burke has begun the process of defrocking the pastor at St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Church. Rev. Marek Bozek, 32 and a native of Poland, said Monday that he received a letter from Burke last week, informing him that he should present himself before the archbishop for "canonical admonition." In the letter, Burke said he's begun the process of laicization, or being "dismissed from the clerical state," for Bozek. The letter cited Bozek's participation in schism at the church that has been locked in a battle with the archdiocese over control of its assets and his...

St. Louis Catholic has learned that Sr. Louise Lears, a member of the "Pastoral Team" at St. Cronan Parish has been issued a summons and canonical admonition by His Grace, Archbishop Raymond L. Burke. Sr. Lears has been summoned to appear to answer the charges of rejection of a truth of faith under canon 750, and of causing grave scandal, thus implicating the penalties for a scandalous external violation of canon law under canon 1399. Canon 750 states as follows: Can. 750 §1. A person must believe with divine and Catholic faith all those things contained in the word of...

Two Roman Catholic female priests who were recently ordained co-pastored their first mass Saturday night in the central west end.Rose Marie Hudson and Elsie McGrath led the service at the first Unitarian church of St. Louis.About one hundred people showed up.The service was held in the church's Hope Chapel.The pastor of the church says it was a fitting place for an event where hope and understanding were very much alive.The Roman Catholic Church does not recognize the ordination of Hudson and McGrath that was conducted by an organization called Roman Catholic Women Priests.

ST. LOUIS, Missouri, JULY 17, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Since structural weaknesses forced the Vatican library in Rome to close for three years of renovation, researchers are finding assistance at a U.S. university. Gregory Pass, the current librarian of the Knights of Columbus Vatican Film Library at St. Louis University, told ZENIT that since the announcement was made about the closure of the Vatican Library, his offices have gotten busier. "We have seen a rise in the number of inquiries regarding the availability of our microfilms and of space in our reading room, as well as a rise in the number of...

New York, Apr 30, 2007 / 11:23 am (CNA).- The St. Louis media seems to be running a campaign against the Catholic Church, following Archbishop Raymond Burke’s protest of abortion-activist Sheryl Crow’s performance at a Catholic hospital fundraiser. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and KMOV (CBS affiliate), in particular, have invited the public to voice its opinion over the archbishop’s decision.Catholic League president Bill Donohue says the “voyeuristic posture assumed by these two media outlets is not legitimate.According to Donohue, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch “is inviting non-Catholics to opine about an internal matter of the St. Louis Archdiocese, beckoning the bigots...

On this special day, the Radio Equalizer can't think of a better place to spend time than at Mike Anderson's 1969 Vietnam memories site, found here. Anderson, a Vietnam vet, former St. Louis radio personality and current publisher of radio information site STLMedia.net, has hundreds of photographs and stories from his 1969 tour. "The memories will be a constantly updated part of the website," Anderson notes. "Thirty-six years after the fact, it's not unusual that not everything comes immediately to mind." Putting the site together wasn't so easy, he admits....