From an article in today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch, titled "Burke Warns St. Stanislaus Board":
"St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke has threatened each of the six members of the board of St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish with the canon law penalty of interdict. 'I warn you that your refusal to comply with the legitimate directives of the Holy See and me, your Archbishop, carries with it, the punishment of interdict or other just penalties,' wrote Burke in a letter to the board members that was obtained by the Post-Dispatch today....The penalty of interdict would be issued by Burke, not by the Vatican, but its effect for the board members would be in place throughout the Catholic world, not just in the archdiocese of St. Louis.
...'I consider it a badge of honor,' said board member Zabielski. 'I'm sticking up for what is right. Pedophiles in this church are transferred from diocese to diocese while good, faithful people are excommunicated.'
I'm sorry, Mr. Zabielski, but 'faithful' people do NOT openly mock their superiors, do NOT go against their proper authorities, and are NOT people who try to get their own way. There is a great misunderstanding among many Catholics. A great number of Catholics think that Jesus' earthly body is a democracy—that you can 'vote out' a bishop or a pastor—but that is not how it works. A 'faithful' member of the Catholic Church is one who remains 'faithful' to it.
And what do 'pedophiles' have to do with any of this? The Catholic Church in the U.S. is bending over backwards to apologize for the past misdeeds of a small percentage of priests—very few of whom were pedophiles—and moving on to tackle greater issues, such as the faith of it's people and the holiness of its priests. The Post, in it's usual anti-Catholic way, uses the language 'threaten' and shows a dark, eerie picture (shown below) of the Archbishop when dealing with him, to give the reader nothing but nasty feelings when they hear his name.
I have talked to the Archbishop, and can assure you he is not an evil man. In fact, he's quite a nice guy, and very friendly. But he is very smart, and will not tolerate a lack of respect for institutions and sacred things that justly deserve it. He cares for his flock, and is not afraid to discipline certain members who break the rules if they necessitate it.
The article makes it sound like the Archbishop is doing something extraordinary, or that he is doing something independent of the Vatican. Not so. Archbishop Burke's actions are legally faultless. From The Code of Cannon Law, number 1373:
"A person who publicly incites among subjects animosities or hatred against the Apostolic See or an ordinary because of some act of power or ecclesiastical ministry or provokes subjects to disobey them is to be punished by an interdict or other just penalties."
Yet again, we find an example of a mainstream media outlet jumping on the Catholic-bashing bandwagon, spreading misinformation (i.e. saying the truth, but a radically distorted and disordered version of it) and, for some odd reason or another, trying to smash Archbishop Burke's reputation.