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St. Stanislaus Prayer Service Draws Big Crowds

St. Stanislaus Kostka Church
St. Stanislaus (KWMU file photo)

By Tom Weber, KWMU

St. Louis, MO – A standing-room only crowd attended a prayer service at St. Stanislaus Catholic Church in North St. Louis Sunday.

The service wasn't a formal mass because St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke pulled the priests from the Polish parish last week.

Burke says St. Stanislaus breaks canon law by controlling its own finances.

He says the Archdiocese should control that money.

But church board members say they're not breaking any law and add they'll continue the prayer services as long as needed.

"Satan must be very happy with what's going on here," said church board member Bob Zabielski. "I'm sure he's sitting on the sidelines, applauding, that they're prohibiting religious guidance in our church, after we worked all these years for it."

Zabeilski says Sunday's attendance was at least twice what a normal Sunday mass would draw.

Parishoner John Komos went as far as comparing the larger-than-usual turnout to spitting in the archbishop's face. "He [Burke] has forgotten the parishoners and only thinking about his own benefits. It's sad. We're good Roman Catholics and we're going to stay that way and we're not going to tolerate his arbitrary decisions."

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