Actually, it was the Parish Board who made the grab for the "millions of dollars" in the event the parish closed. Under the original 19th century bylaws, the parish property was to go to the Archdiocese and the parish corporation was under the control of the Archdiocese and civilly subject to canon law and the rules of the Archdiocese. In recent decades the parish board changed that, illegally, so that they could hang on to the parish property in the event of a closure and so that they would have no regulation from the Archdiocese to prevent them from doing stuff like setting up a bar after Church for the parents to drink while their children are in CCD (the pastor opposed but he was _overruled_ by the board - doesn't sound very Catholic to me).
Burke offered to place the entire parish property in a civil trust and to promise to keep the Parish open so long as the Polish community supported it. If it was to close, the property would go to a civil corporation for the purpose of promoting the Polish heritage in the St. Louis area, under control of the parish board of directors. All this would be enforceable under civil law.
Instead, the Parish board has hired this liberal priest who preaches "open communion" and bizarre interpretations of scripture. It is about a fight for authority, and the Catholic principle is clear - the Bishop governs his diocese, not the laypeople. There would be no need for any of this if the Parish board had not made an illegal grab for power in the first place...
Documentation Regarding St. Stanislaus Parish
See the new and old bylaws here, as well as the proposed solution:
http://www.archstl.org/parishes/documents/st_stanislaus.html
Rome has spoken:
From the Congregation for the Clergy, 11 November, 2004Dear Mr. Krasnicki,
With regard your recourse against the Most Reverend Raymond L. Burke, the Archbishop of Saint Louis, this Congregation encloses its canonical response.
After reviewing the documentation relating to the foundation and organization of the Polish Roman Catholic St. Stanislaus Parish, as well as its more than 100 year history, this Congregation is greatly troubled by the current situation. There can be no denying that when Archbishop Peter Kenrick founded the Polish Roman Catholic St. Stanislaus Parish, he created a Roman Catholic parish to serve the needs of the Polish ethnic population in the Archdiocese of St. Louis. The civil form of incorporation under the "Benevolent, Religious and Education Association" laws of the State of Missouri was only one of the vehicles by which Archbishop Kenrick accomplished this purpose.
The actions of the Board of Directors in attempting to take control of the Parish represents a clear affront to the authority of the Church and the intentions of the Parish founder. Through careful and premeditated revisions of the By-laws of the civil corporation, you have attempted to make the role of the pastor impotent, attempted to wrest control from the local Ordinary, and attempted to transform St. Stanislaus into an entity which has no resemblance to a parish as envisioned by either the tradition or current law of the Roman Catholic Church.
This Congregation strongly urges you and the parishioners of St. Stanislaus Parish to work in cooperation with your local Ordinary to restore St. Stanislaus Parish to the status envisioned by its founder, that of a parish of the Roman Catholic Church with a pastor who "exercises the pastoral care of the community entrusted to him under the authority of the diocesan Bishop, whose ministry of Christ he is called to share, so that for this community he may carry out the offices of teaching, sanctifying and ruling with the cooperation of other priests or deacons and with the assistance of lay members of Christ's faithful, in accordance with the law." (C.I.C. Can. 519).
With assurances of prayers and best wishes, I remain,
Yours sincerely in Christ,
Csaba Ternyac, Sec.