ST. LOUIS (MO)
Patheos [Englewood CO]
June 27, 2024
By Mary Pezzulo
I was surprised to see Chesterfield, Missouri, mentioned as I scrolled through my social media.
I was even more surprised to see that they were in the news because a Catholic parish there was supposedly organizing an armed militia. And the whole story, or at least what we know of it right now, is even more complicated than that.
Yesterday on X/Twitter, Laura Burkhardt, a Missouri resident and a volunteer for Moms Demand Action, tweeted out a thread about a very odd advertisement that appeared in the bulletin for Ascension Catholic Parish in Chesterfield, Missouri. The thread starts off with two screenshots. The first is the cover of the bulletin, an ordinary church bulletin like every one I’ve ever seen. The bulletin boasts that the parish is 100 years old and they have an adoration chapel where the Divine Mercy Chaplet is prayed every afternoon. Seems like a nice place. The second screenshot is of a flier recruiting young men to join a “militia” called “The Legion of Sancta Lana.” The said purpose of the militia is “protecting the Holy Eucharist, our congregation, our clergy, and the church grounds.” There’s a QR code on there where you can apply for the militia, though it now links to a form “no longer accepting responses.” The militia says it’s not going to recruit officially until August, at which point it will start training its men in “military operations,” but in the meanwhile it’s trying to form a council that can write a training manual.
“Ascension Parish in Chesterfield, MO has been chosen as the testing ground for the militia and, if successful, we hope to establish platoons at parishes around the world,” the flier reportedly said, and I assume that’s on the back of the flier because I don’t see it in the screenshot.Suddenly the parish doesn’t sound so nice after all. But there’s more.
When I read this, I was extremely puzzled. Missouri certainly has a reputation just like Appalachia does, but Chesterfield is not Deliverance. I’ve been there because a friend from the university grew up there. It’s a comfortable affluent suburb of Saint Louis, with a Cheesecake Factory and everything. My husband, who’s from Washington, Missouri, calls Chesterfield a “Paved Paradise.” So I was shocked to see that this parish needed a militia to protect it from attacks. And indeed, it turns out that they don’t.
The associate pastor of the parish, Reverend Eugene Schaeffer, seems as flabbergasted as anybody as to what the advertisement is talking about. He called the ad “a mistake” and stressed “there is no militia,” according to the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch. The entire bulletin for June 16th has been pulled from their website and replaced with a retraction. And in the interest of not bullying a random parish in a Missouri suburb which doesn’t have a militia to defend itself, please do share that retraction if you’re going to share the screenshots of the crazy ad. The parish insists there is no militia, they denounce the very idea of a militia, and there haven’t been any threats to the parish. For that, I’m relieved. I don’t think Chesterfield would last very long under siege.
I was skeptical that Ascension Parish distributed a bulletin with such a nutty ad in it without ever noticing the ad was in it, and I said so, but it turns out that I was wrong. That’s an easier mistake to make than you think. I’d imagined the church bulletins being mimeographed by a nun in the parish office on a Saturday afternoon. Of course, that isn’t the case. A former bulletin editor explained that every parish just sends their parish information to a bulletin publishing company, who inserts the ads and prints off the bulletins themselves without any input or knowledge from the parish about what the ads may be. The parish opens a big cardboard box of bulletins just before the first Sunday Mass and stacks them up to be distributed. Yes, somebody should have noticed the very bizarre one-page ad for a militia. But it’s within reason that they just didn’t until it was too late. The ad wasn’t theirs. Somebody else arranged for it to be put in. But who?
The Archdiocese of Saint Louis, again according to the Post-Dispatch, won’t provide any information about how this advertisement came to be in the bulletin, but they mentioned that the person who submitted the application for the ad was a man. That doesn’t narrow it down very much. However, it does point to the fact that whatever chain of SNAFUs led to the ad being published didn’t seem to happen at the parish level but at the diocesan level. The mysterious militia organizer talked to someone at the diocese. How else would they know it was a man? Was somebody actively arranging this militia with the Archdiocese of Saint Louis? Are they the ones who decided on Ascension Parish would make a good test case? Why?
The Post-Dispatch reports on the legion’s plans, which include having combat-trained militiamen in white uniforms serving as lectors and ushers but ready to snap into action at a minute’s notice if the church comes under an attack. And again, I ask, in CHESTERFIELD? Who’s going to attack a Catholic parish in Chesterfield? But then again, this is apparently supposed to be a test militia so that the legion can have white-clad armed lectors all over the country. I guess Chesterfield is probably a good place for a brand new untested militia to make a dry run.
The article does interview two confused churchgoers from the parish, who seem to think that religious freedom is “under attack,” but at least one of them balks at the idea of an actual armed militia at Mass.
I’ve been researching for any other information I can find about Ascension Catholic Parish, anything that might give me a clue about their culture and as to whether or not they’re not telling the truth about the ad. There’s not much out there.
My readers know that I report on sexual abuse cases a lot on this blog, so I’ll mention first that there was, horrendously, a famous child abuser priest stationed at Ascension from 1993 to 1997. I’m just telling you this because the thread that went viral with the original screenshots mentions the abuse case, due to another settlement being handed down in 2023, so it would be very awkward if I say nothing. You can decide for yourself if it’s relevant. All of the public information I can find so far incriminates the archdiocese and not Ascension Parish. The victim has mentioned that his school principal is one of the people who reported Wolken to the diocese to try and protect him, and I don’t know if he means a former principal of Ascension Catholic School or not; I assume he does. On the other hand, David Clohessy of the Survivor Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), was quoted as saying about the case, “Long ago, church staff knew Fr. Gary Wolken was a predator but did almost nothing to stop him and protect kids,” so there may be some incriminating information I don’t have. If so, I don’t know if any of the responsible parties are still there decades later. I’ll let you know if I find out.
Researching further, I find it seems that the current pastor, Monsignor Patrick Hambrough, was present at the March for Life during that debacle with Covington Catholic High School, though he didn’t do anything wrong; he just reports he was heckled by the same people who heckled the Covington boys. That could happen to anyone who happened to be there. The parish’s latest bulletin says they have scheduled a “patriotic Rosary” on July Fourth. There’s nothing wrong with praying for your country, though the idea of a “patriotic Rosary” instead of a Rosary interceding for the country without rah-rahing for it makes me want to grit my filthy liberal teeth. Beyond the Rosary they have a youth ministry, a Knights of Columbus chapter, and a sewing and quilting club. They’re helping gather supplies for a nearby food pantry. There’s even a little blurb decrying gun violence and directing anyone who needs help to a local domestic violence shelter, which is good of them.
All together, Ascension Catholic Parish seems like a busy, affluent, decidedly conservative-leaning parish, the kind I’d expect to find in a suburb of Saint Louis. It does not seem like a bizarre culty place that would come up with the idea of an armed militia on their own and advertise it to their parishioners. If anything, it seems less stuffy than the parishes here in Steubenville. And their shock at the events this week seems genuine. Due to the way ads are placed in bulletins, it’s plausible that they just didn’t know. I believe them. Barring further information, I think they didn’t do this.
There needs to be an investigation as to who’s organizing the Legion of Sancta Lana. Somebody’s feet need to be held to the fire over this. But I don’t think any more scrutiny needs to be focused on Ascension Catholic Parish. I think we need to badger the Archdiocese of Saint Louis, and we can direct some questions to the bulletin publishing company as well.
You can bet I’ll update you as the situation progresses.