THE BISHOP IS UNFAIR TO THIS PARISH, read a sign posted on the lawn of the rectory of St. Barbara's Roman Catholic Church in Vulcan, Mich, last week. Twenty pickets lounged about the rectory lawn. They had been lounging there for six weeks, in defiance of their Bishop Joseph Casimir Plagens, who had ordered their priest of the past 13 years, Father Simon Borkowski, transferred to a seminary in Wisconsin (TIME, Sept. 5). Professing to be unable to get past the restraining pickets, Father Simon remained in his rectory. Then, one day last week, a party of 60 Catholics, some local and some from nearby towns, drove up to St. Barbara's to spring the trap. They man-handled the pickets out of the way, broke open the rectory's locked door, took possession of it and the church. Father Simon emerged, coatless, collarless. Once outside, he made no move to leave for his appointed post in Wisconsin. Instead, he joined the pickets.
Father Simon's successor, Father Erasmus Dooley, entered the church. He left it carrying, in a pyx, the Blessed Sacrament. Ten of the "liberators," Catholics who averred that they wished simply to give Father Simon his freedom and permit services to be resumed in the church, took possession of the rectory. But not for long. The pickets reorganized, mobilized their reserves, stormed the rectory with 100 men, beat up the "liberators," with bloody emphasis on one of them, a trustee of the church named Florian Vecellia, who took his bruises home to bed. Pickets bundled their not-unwilling Father Simon back into the rectory. Their lines reformed, they telegraphed Bishop Plagens: YOU ARE THE SOLE RESPONSIBLE PERSON FOR BLOODSHED. . . MAY GOD FORGIVE YOU WE CAN'T.