STL Catholics

Full text of the email to His Excellency Archbishop Rozanski & His Vicars about the AUSCP

Your Excellency Archbishop Rozanski:

I pray for you & our Church leadership at all times, but especially now, on the “birthday” of our Holy Mother Church, Pentecost. Perhaps there is no more fitting time than Pentecost, to ask the Holy Spirit to soften your heart from abusing your faithful flock, including by refusing to be open & honest with them. Thus, I ask you all, is the Archdiocese of St. Louis seeking to be led by The Holy Spirit, or trying to lead a revolution of a “man-centered church,” not a Christ-centered Church?

We truly all know, even heretics and those fallen from the faith, that a “man-centered church” is not the Catholic Church at all, and is thus doomed to failure. That is why it is so critical that we hear from our Catholic leaders, in the Universal Church, and in our local Archdiocese, as to what they truly believe, and what they truly support. When a national organization like Focus Ministries came to St. Louis, all such events were touted publicly by the Archdiocese, and rightly so. The same was true for the National Eucharistic Congress.

Next month, another national organization will come to St. Louis, as avowed heretics who preach all manner of heterdoxy. I know you know them well, the Association of US Catholic Priests, or AUSCP, in no small part since your former and long-serving Vicar of Clergy Fr. Ken Brown was a very public promoter of the AUSCP, including on the Archdiocese’s own website.

A search of your website, news reports, releases and otherwise (both here locally, and nationally through AUSCP, etc.) I could not find any public statement (for or against), in regard to the AUSCP annual meeting here. Am I wrong? In the absence of such a proclamation (again, one way or the other), I ask you plainly, and your leadership team, do you agree or disagree with what the AUSCP preaches, and do you and your leadership team publicly promote, or publicly condemn, the AUSCP meeting here in St. Louis? Sacred Scripture tells us to be sure that our “Yes is yes” and our “No is no.” So I ask you, as plainly as I can, do you publicly support the AUSCP and its meeting here in St. Louis, yes or no?

As a faithful Catholic who does sincerely pray for you and your leadership, I can honestly say that I am praying for a written answer to my very simple question, one way or the other. Many believe I am foolish to write you or your Vicars about anything of importance, as too many of you have become politicians, who refuse to go “on the record” about anything that you don’t want to. To them, I always answer the same, that I can only do what I believe The Holy Spirit wishes or commands, and what my Lord & Saviour Jesus Christ absolutely commanded in Matthew 18. So, under Matthew 18 and Canon 212, I ask openly, sincerely and prayerfully, do you support the AUSCP, or not?

Certainly, there might be lots of permutations of this simple question, and ramifications of it. Examples might include “have you instructed your Vicars or ordained clergy, one way or the other, in regard to the AUSCP?” Have you given any direction to your Deanery heads or Parish Pastors, if they are asked about whether they support the AUSCP, or whether they will attend its meetings while here in St. Louis, or whether they would recommend the AUSCP for young priests or priest-candidates in St. Louis? In an Archdiocese known as the “Rome of the West,” where you ordained only a single priest just one day before Pentecost, do you think the AUSCP leads to greater vocations?

Sadly, I know that politicians who are more concerned with public perception that truth, will not likely answer any such questions, and certainly not publicly, and “on the record.” Yet, how can any true soldier of Christ, true Priest of Jesus Christ, be unwilling to go “on the record” about truth, at any time?

While I could certainly attach an avalanche of evidence and news reporting on the heresy of the AUSCP, and its scandalous conduct, I think I can be fairly summed up by a single article from last year, where the USCCB itself rejected the AUSCP. That is right, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops EXPRESSLY AND PUBLICLY rejected the AUSCP. They refused to allow the AUSCP to participate in the national Eucharistic conference, because of their express rejection of Catholic Teaching on the Eucharist:

AUSCP Rejected by Eucharistic Congress: What Happened? – The Lepanto Institute

So, in light of the fact that the USCCB has rejected the AUSCP, why would you welcome them here, in the Archdiocese of St. Louis? And if they were not welcome here, they would not come here, but they know full well (don’t they?) that they are “welcomed” here, even if you and your leaders PUBLICLY remain silent?

Regardless of whether you are willing to reply to your faithful flock, “on the record” about such things, I continue to pray for you. I continue to ask others to pray for you and your leaders. But I also know this, after more than 30 years of dealing with the aftermath of the sexual abuse crisis, I know “silence” on such matters is always “complicity,” and that silence = abuse, in critical Church settings. Thus, I also plead and pray, that all of the faithful see clearly, and publicly, the type of leadership you and your Vicars offer, to the truly faithful Catholic flock of the Archdiocese of St. Louis.

I am prayerfully asking for an individual reply, from you and from each of your Vicars, copied here. Truly, may Almighty God have mercy on you all, if you lead people astray by your complicit silence. St. Louis, King of France, please pray for us!!

Your true brother in Christ,

Ken R. Battis