The Catholic Church is a hierarchical Church. 

The Supreme Court in the St Nicholas decision affirmed that whenever a case involves questions of religious discipline or faith, or ecclesiastical rule, custom, or law, the courts must accept such Church-rendered decisions as final, and as binding.

How, then, the case could be decided on neutral principles of civil law is a bit puzzling, unless that jurisdiction is somehow exempt from constitutional law.

The excommunications resulted from the board's schism.  The parish was flooded with new members who quickly outnumbered the original parishioners and headed the parish out of the Church. Since then it has gone sufficiently out of orbit that neither the Episcopal Church nor the Polish National Catholic Church will have it.

In any case, there was no particular large negative public reaction to the Archbishop's course of conduct. You just happen not to like it.