Here's a heart-warming Christmas story.
St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke, one of less than a handful of Catholic bishops to actively support Bush in 2004 by announcing that Kerry could not receive communion in his diocese, has a mess of his own making on his hands.
This time, it's all about money. Though, last time, it was about money too, but indirectly.
Burke has excommunicated (in Catholic doctrine, consigned to hell) a priest and six lay leaders of a Polish parish because they wouldn't obey him.
Burke may have Catholic law and tradition on his side, but it sure doesn't look good in the papers.
More on the greedy bishop below.
Essentially, Burke wants to abrogate an more-than-100-year-old agreement between the parish and the diocese, in order to seize control of the parish's approximately $10 million in assets.
Bully Burke really is a Bushite bishop. He's a newbie, appointed in early 2004 in time to play a more prominent role in the largely successful Rove campaign to alienate Catholics from Kerry. And he's clearly a control freak, like most in the Catholic hierarchy, but unlike, in this instance, every other St. Louis archbishop in the 20th and 21st centuries.
The parishioners are defiant, as they should be, given that parishes like theirs have been summarily closed in the hundreds across the country, in part due to declining attendance and in part due to dioceses' need to come up with ready cash to pay off sex-abuse lawsuits.
The Christmas Eve service there, with a new priest, attracted an overflow crowd of more than 1,500, a sign of solid local and regional support.
Hopefully, these good people won't be paying any attention to their Bushite bishop in upcoming elections.
Here are the links to Post Dispatch stories on the controversy, yesterday's and today's, including an ironic gay smear of the new priest.