About the St. Stanislaus situation

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Stanislaus_Kostka_Church_%28Saint_Louis%29 St. Stanislaus Kostka Church is a former Roman Catholic church, established as a Catholic Parish in 1880 to serve the Polish community. The church is notable for it’s dispute with Archbishop Burke over control of the parish and its assets. Archbishop Burke excommunicated the board of directors of the church for non compliance with his edicts. The church, while threatened with suppression, continues to be run as a not-for-profit corporation by the church parishioners. The church was given a charger in 1891 by Archbishop Peter Kenrick, which assigned the parish property to a corporation under a pasture and lay board of members to be continually appointed by the Archbishop. The current controversy has endured through five different Archbishops and seems to revolve around whether the property and monetary assets would be controlled by a pastor appointed by the archbishop, which is the norm, or by the lay board of directors. The fear of the parishioners concerns the possibility that the Archbishop will take the assets they have accumulated and close the church. This issue is repeatedly brought up in the papers in the St. Louis area. Generally, it seems that the Archbishop is being draconian and inflexible. The church has been run successfully for 100 years and is a thriving community. What should be most important is, “does the church minister to the religious needs of the community?” Issues of control of assets should be irrelevant so long as the Lay Board isn’t misusing the funds. Yet, the Archbishop is willing to excommunicate people to get control of the assets. To me, that seems to place a value on human souls. Divide the disputed assets by the number of excommunicated souls and you can calculate the value placed on a human soul. The argument between the two sides could be rectified by 1) The Archbishop just tolerating the unusual fiscal structure so long as the church teachings were in line with Catholic dogma. 2) The lay board sacrificing control of the church assets. They keep the title to the land, as I understand, but the collected church assets revert to pastoral control. 3) The Archbishop setting aside half the funds for the discretionary use of the lay board while returning the rest of the asset control the Church. This would be known as some sort of compromise to keep the peace. I believe Archbishop Burke should get married for a few years. I think he'd learn something valuable from the experience. In my marriage, I have learned to balance being right, having control, and having peace. I think that the Archbishop has failed to see the value in letting people have some control and keeping the peace even if you disagree. The bible says, “blessed are the peacemakers” and I should think that Priests should remember that – sometimes peace require the person who is ‘right’ making allowances and concessions in order to smooth over scandal and controversy. So, what’s your take?