{"id":6358,"date":"2005-12-15T13:38:27","date_gmt":"2005-12-15T13:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/trouble-in-belleville.html"},"modified":"2005-12-15T13:38:27","modified_gmt":"2005-12-15T13:38:27","slug":"trouble-in-belleville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/trouble-in-belleville.html","title":{"rendered":"Trouble in Belleville"},"content":{"rendered":"

Confrontation?<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Nearly half the priests in the Diocese of Belleville voted Wednesday to demand
changes in the way Bishop Edward K. Braxton is running the diocese.<\/p>\n

The 32 priests met at St. Boniface Church in Germantown. They aired an intense,
collective concern that Braxton was not listening to them, and thus not serving
Southern Illinois’ Roman Catholics, according to priests who were there.<\/p>\n

"There is a dissatisfaction with the leadership in our diocese and we decided
to see what we can do about it," said the Rev. Mark D. Stec, pastor of four
churches in Galatin County, in the southeastern part of the state.<\/p>\n

Stec said all 72 priests in the diocese were invited to the meeting. The
diocese counts 104,000 Catholics out of a total population of 846,000 in 124
parishes.<\/p>\n

"There is growing frustration that we are not being listened to and instead of
being isolated in our concerns, this meeting was an opportunity to share what
we are feeling," Stec said.<\/p>\n

Stec and three other priests – the Rev. James M. Nall, the Rev. Jerry E. Wirth
and Monsignor Carl E. Scherrer – signed a letter to all Belleville’s diocesan
priests in November inviting them to Wednesday’s meeting to discuss "how best
to assert our rights as the Presbyterate of the Diocese of Belleville."<\/p>\n

In the letter, the priests listed several complaints about Braxton, including
"repeated unsuccessful attempts to meet with the bishop, talk with the bishop
(or ask) questions of the bishop …," and "being told how to dress, who to
associate with, what to say, how to act … akin to a parent and their child."<\/p>\n

Recently, Braxton announced that he had authorized the use of an emergency rite
that allows for a prayer service, led by a deacon or lay person, at which
worshippers may receive Holy Communion.<\/p>\n

Stec said Belleville’s priests learned of the new rite a week before they were
to tell parishioners about it.<\/p>\n

"There was no input from priests prior to implementation. As the bishop, he has
every right to put it out there, but wouldn’t he want some input from the
people out in the trenches?"<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Confrontation? Nearly half the priests in the Diocese of Belleville voted Wednesday to demand changes in the way Bishop Edward K. Braxton is running the diocese. The 32 priests met at St. Boniface Church in Germantown. They aired an intense, collective concern that Braxton was not listening to them, and thus not serving Southern Illinois’…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nTrouble in Belleville - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/trouble-in-belleville.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trouble in Belleville - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Confrontation? Nearly half the priests in the Diocese of Belleville voted Wednesday to demand changes in the way Bishop Edward K. Braxton is running the diocese. The 32 priests met at St. Boniface Church in Germantown. 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Nearly half the priests in the Diocese of Belleville voted Wednesday to demand changes in the way Bishop Edward K. Braxton is running the diocese. The 32 priests met at St. Boniface Church in Germantown. They aired an intense, collective concern that Braxton was not listening to them, and thus not serving Southern Illinois’…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/trouble-in-belleville.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2005-12-15T13:38:27+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/trouble-in-belleville.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/trouble-in-belleville.html","name":"Trouble in Belleville - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2005-12-15T13:38:27+00:00","dateModified":"2005-12-15T13:38:27+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/trouble-in-belleville.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/trouble-in-belleville.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/12\/trouble-in-belleville.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Trouble in Belleville"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6358\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}