Saturday 3rd June 2023

Home » Frontpage » Currently Reading:

Fr. Pavone Says . . . Pastors Shouldn’t Fear Restrictions On Allowing Pro-Life Activity

August 8, 2018 Frontpage No Comments

By DEXTER DUGGAN

Thanks to the Trump administration, pastors needn’t be concerned about their churches losing tax-exempt status because they’ve provided political information, a veteran priest and pro-life activist told The Wanderer during a July 30 telephone interview.
While Fr. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life (priestsforlife.org), reviewed various efforts that the Florida-based international Catholic organization is making to educate voters as the November midterm elections approach, he mentioned President Trump’s executive order issued in May 2017.
“If there were ever a year when pastors do not have to be concerned about that,” Pavone said, Trump “has made so clear” through his executive order that “the federal government is not going to punish churches for speaking about politics.”
The Washington-based conservative Daily Signal website posted on May 4, 2017 that Trump’s “executive order states that the administration’s policy is to protect religious liberty. It directs the Internal Revenue Service to use maximum discretion to alleviate the law governing churches and partisan politics, known as the Johnson Amendment.”
The Johnson Amendment, Pavone told The Wanderer, “is all bark and no bite…and the guidelines are so vague, one could easily challenge them on the grounds of vagueness.”
Pavone discussed voter training provided by Priests for Life that is “very much geared to an interdenominational audience,” including in-person and online training where he hopes “the participation in these seminars is in the tens of thousands.”
Upcoming in-person training is scheduled for Troy, Mich., on August 17, Cincinnati on September 5 and 6, and Titusville, Fla., on September 8 and 29.
Priests for Life recently moved its headquarters from Staten Island, N.Y., to Titusville, located near the Kennedy Space Center on the Atlantic coast.
More information, including regarding the online training, is at voteforlifetraining.org, he said, while electionprayer.com provides spiritual preparation.
The training includes such basics as voter registration, deadlines, and the general election, Pavone said. “We train people how to be attentive to this information,” then educate their fellow citizens.
“We try to get people thinking in a dual way,” he said, so that they ponder not only their own ballot but also “how can I influence other people . . . to cast the best vote?”
Comparing and contrasting the Republican and Democratic Parties’ platforms continues to be a very popular feature, he said. Democrats are “no longer the party people are used to” but stand for “Godlessness and death,” Pavone said.
Nationalizing this year’s midterm election issues is important, he said. “We believe it’s to our advantage to do that.”
Pointing to the importance of every contest, Pavone said, “Even a local congressional district race…could potentially shift the balance of power in the House of Representatives.”
Pavone said he recommends following political news at the Real Clear Politics and Cook Political Report sites (realclearpolitics.com and cookpolitical.com).
A traditional obstacle to direct distribution of pro-life voter information has been church pastors’ concern they’re causing legal problems for themselves.
In addition, Pavone said, some uncooperative pastors are trying “to shield themselves from liberal Democratic parishioners” who would object over factual information about their party being made available.
However, he said, there’s no reason why people handing out literature can’t stand on public sidewalks, which often are just next to church doors.
One resource Priests for Life offers to pro-lifers, Pavone said, is a prepared letter explaining why their presence on the sidewalk is legal. The letter can be sent in advance of a literature activity to the local pastor and chief of police, briefing them on facts like case law and saying the pro-lifers “have a right to do this.”
The letter lets the officials know “they’ll get in greater trouble by interfering” with the pro-lifers’ rights than allowing them to distribute material, Pavone said.
“We would simply supply (pro-life groups) with the letters,” he said. “. . . It would be completely up to the local group” to choose to mail them to pertinent officials.
Other Priests for Life projects include an online television channel on ending abortion, videos, action alerts, and conference calls for both people in general and pro-life leaders, he said.
Getting through to Democratic Party leaders, though, is among the most difficult of tasks, he said. Asked whether they realize the damage that being so pro-abortion is doing to their party, Pavone replied:
“It’s probably the hardest message to get through because they’re in such blind allegiance to the abortion industry….It’s really like dogma for them.”
Priests for Life was welcomed to Titusville by local officials and area politicians. The area’s Hometown News posted on May 17: “Rep. Bill Posey (R., Rockledge) and Florida State Rep. Erin Grall also attended the ceremony, and Carol Fondo of the Titusville Chamber of Commerce brought along a giant pair of scissors to help cut the ribbon outside the building at 5211 S. Washington Ave.”
Hometown News also said: “Priests for Life is the umbrella organization for a dozen ministries that reach out to youth, the African-American and Latino communities, priests and other clergy, seminarians and lay people. Priests for Life is a registered Non-Governmental Organization at the United Nations and has close contact with the Vatican through its office in Rome.
“Rachel’s Vineyard, the world’s largest ministry for healing after abortion, is part of Priests for Life, and the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, a mobilization of thousands of women and men who speak publicly about their abortion regret, is a joint project of Priests for Life and Anglicans for Life,” the news site reported.
Although Priests for Life was grateful for its years in New York, Pavone said, “It’s nice being in a swing state” now. “We’re enjoying it.”
He said Floridians “have a strong sense” of their vote being up for grabs — not guaranteed to one party.

An Exciting Season

Pavone told The Wanderer that a lack of greater legal progress against permissive abortion in the U.S. troubles many people who take Priests for Life training.
“It’s a constant frustration among people who come to our seminars” that nearly a half-century has passed since the Supreme Court invented the constitutionality of national permissive abortion in 1973, he said
However, he said, from a historical perspective, more time elapsed — 58 years — from the time the Supreme Court upheld racial segregation in 1896 to a major rejection of racial separation in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
“No pro-life legislation gets passed unless you have all three in alignment,” both chambers of Congress and also the White House, Pavone said. But even then, he added, there’s “the control of the courts,” which Trump is affecting favorably.
If being pro-life motivated people to vote for Trump for president in 2016, Pavone said, they can see much progress on the issue with him in the White House.
Looking toward the November elections, Pavone said, “It’s going to be an exciting season in the next few months.”

Share Button

2019 The Wanderer Printing Co.

Twitter Feed

Unable to load Tweets

Vatican and USCCB leave transgender policy texts unpublished

While U.S. bishops have made headlines for releasing policies addressing gender identity and pastoral ministry, guidelines on the subject have been drafted but not published by both the U.S. bishops’ conference and the Vatican’s doctrinal office, leaving diocesan bishops to…Continue Reading

Biden says Pope Francis told him to continue receiving communion, amid scrutiny over pro-abortion policies

President Biden said that Pope Francis, during their meeting Friday in Vatican City, told him that he should continue to receive communion, amid heightened scrutiny of the Catholic president’s pro-abortion policies.  The president, following the approximately 90-minute-long meeting, a key…Continue Reading

Federal judge rules in favor of Gov. DeSantis’ mask mandate ban

MIAMI (LifeSiteNews) – A federal judge this week handed Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis another legal victory on his mask mandate ban for schools. On Wednesday, Judge K. Michael Moore of the Southern District of Florida denied a petition from…Continue Reading

The Eucharist should not be received unworthily, says Nigerian cardinal

Priests have a duty to remind Catholics not to receive the Eucharist in a state of serious sin and to make confession easily available, a Nigerian cardinal said at the International Eucharistic Congress on Thursday. “It is still the doctrine…Continue Reading

Donald Trump takes a swipe at Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him

Donald Trump complained about Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him in 2020. The former president made the comments in a conference call featuring religious leaders. The move could be seen to shore up his religious conservative base…Continue Reading

Y Gov. Kathy Hochul Admits Andrew Cuomo Covered Up COVID Deaths, 12,000 More Died Than Reported

When it comes to protecting people from COVID, Andrew Cuomo is already the worst governor in America. New York has the second highest death rate per capita, in part because he signed an executive order putting COVID patients in nursing…Continue Reading

Prayers For Cardinal Burke . . . U.S. Cardinal Burke says he has tested positive for COVID-19

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke said he has tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19. In an Aug. 10 tweet, he wrote: “Praised be Jesus Christ! I wish to inform you that I have recently…Continue Reading

Democrats Block Amendment Banning Late-Term Abortions, Stopping Abortions Up to Birth

Senate Democrats have blocked an amendment that would ban abortions on babies older than 20 weeks. During consideration of the multi-trillion spending package, pro-life Louisiana Senator John Kennedy filed an amendment to ban late-term abortions, but Democrats steadfastly support killing…Continue Reading

Transgender student wins as U.S. Supreme Court rebuffs bathroom appeal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory to a transgender former public high school student who waged a six-year legal battle against a Virginia county school board that had barred him from using the bathroom corresponding…Continue Reading

New York priest accused by security guard of assault confirms charges have now been dropped

NEW YORK, June 17, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — A New York priest has made his first public statement regarding the dismissal of charges against him.  Today Father George W. Rutler reached out to LifeSiteNews and other media today with the following…Continue Reading

21,000 sign petition protesting US Catholic bishops vote on Biden, abortion

More than 21,000 people have signed a letter calling for U.S. Catholic bishops to cancel a planned vote on whether President Biden should receive communion.  Biden, a Catholic, supports abortion rights and has long come under attack from some Catholics over that…Continue Reading

Bishop Gorman seeks candidates to fill two full time AP level teaching positions for the 2021-2022 school year in the subject areas of Calculus/Statistics and Physics

Bishop Thomas K. Gorman Regional Catholic School is a college preparatory school located in Tyler, Texas. It is an educational ministry of the Catholic Diocese of Tyler led by Bishop Joseph Strickland. The sixth through twelfth grade school provides a…Continue Reading

Untitled 5 Untitled 2

Attention Readers:

  Welcome to our website. Readers who are familiar with The Wanderer know we have been providing Catholic news and orthodox commentary for 150 years in our weekly print edition.


  Our daily version offers only some of what we publish weekly in print. To take advantage of everything The Wanderer publishes, we encourage you to su
bscribe to our flagship weekly print edition, which is mailed every Friday or, if you want to view it in its entirety online, you can subscribe to the E-edition, which is a replica of the print edition.
 
  Our daily edition includes: a selection of material from recent issues of our print edition, news stories updated daily from renowned news sources, access to archives from The Wanderer from the past 10 years, available at a minimum charge (this will be expanded as time goes on). Also: regularly updated features where we go back in time and highlight various columns and news items covered in The Wanderer over the past 150 years. And: a comments section in which your remarks are encouraged, both good and bad, including suggestions.
 
  We encourage you to become a daily visitor to our site. If you appreciate our site, tell your friends. As Catholics we must band together to rediscover our faith and share it with the world if we are to effectively counter a society whose moral culture seems to have no boundaries and a government whose rapidly extending reach threatens to extinguish the rights of people of faith to practice their religion (witness the HHS mandate). Now more than ever, vehicles like The Wanderer are needed for clarification and guidance on the issues of the day.

Catholic, conservative, orthodox, and loyal to the Magisterium have been this journal’s hallmarks for five generations. God willing, our message will continue well into this century and beyond.

Joseph Matt
President, The Wanderer Printing Co.

Untitled 1

Catechism

Today . . .

Pontifical Academy for Life president calls medically assisted suicide ‘feasible’

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 23, 2023 / 15:02 pm Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, has spoken in support of legalized medically assisted suicide, calling it “feasible” despite the clear teachings of the Catholic Church against it. “Personally, I would not practice suicide assistance, but I understand that legal mediation may be the greatest common good concretely possible under the conditions

Supreme Court Temporarily Blocks Lower Court Ruling Banning Mail-Order Abortions

The Supreme Court has temporarily blocked a lower court ruling banning mail-order abortions and putting safety measures in place to protect women who are currently being injured at high rates by the abortion pill. The high court made the decision to allow but sides in the legal battle the chance to provide additional information and to allow it to more fully consider the case next week. Also, another federa judge issued a contrasting ruling that…Continue Reading

A Call to Action for Parents . . . Minnesotans Wake UP! The Insanity in This State Continues!

">Cardinals Burke . . . SAME-SEX UNION BLESSINGS?

Longtime teacher fired after discussing God in classroom, challenging ‘evil’ LGBT school policy

(LifeSiteNews) — A longtime public school teacher in Idaho was let go earlier this month for being unafraid to mention God in the classroom and voicing his objections to a pro-LGBT policy designed to promote “transgender” ideologies among young people.  Ian O’Connell, a Catholic teacher who served as a substitute in the public institutions of Caldwell School District for over 20 years, spoke on February 13 about a proposed “gender identity and sexual orientation” policy that…Continue Reading

Feminist Professor Who Vandalized Pro-Life Table . . . Gets Fired After Holding Machete To Reporter’s Neck

By MICAIAH BILGER WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeNews) — A New York City art professor accused of vandalizing a pro-life student display and later threatening two journalists with a machete has been fired from her job.Shellyne Rodriguez, of the Bronx, was an adjunct assistant professor of art at Hunter College, a public, taxpayer-funded school under the City…Continue Reading

A Symptom Of Urban Crime’s Toll On College Students

By ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS In recent years, there has been a surge in violent crime in our nation’s capital, and unfortunately, our college students have not been spared. This issue has become symptomatic of a larger problem that plagues urban cities across the nation, where college students are being robbed and carjacked, all at gunpoint. As…Continue Reading

San Quentin Prison And School Choice

By TERENCE P. JEFFREY When I was a boy, I spent some time inside San Quentin State Prison and got to know a few of the inmates there.The San Rafael Little League played its games in that prison and a group of inmates known as “trustees” umpired them.The grounds of San Quentin were considerably larger…Continue Reading

Stumbling Toward Heaven?… Will Biden Repent Of His Evils Before A Serious Fall Could Harm Him?

By DEXTER DUGGAN Does Joe Biden understand the generosity that God continues to extend to him and his allies who keep trying to drag nations into degeneracy and death?Even though Catholics have come to expect the promotion of awful immorality by some of the U.S.’s most powerful reputedly Catholic politicians — all of them left-wing…Continue Reading

As His Cause Moves Forward… Joseph Dutton’s 180th Birthday Celebrated

By PEGGY MOEN Bishop Larry Silva of Honolulu was invited to Stowe, Vt., to help celebrate the 180th birthday of Joseph Dutton, according to a report in The Hawaii Catholic Herald by Patrick Downes, editor. If canonized, Dutton will be the third saint honored for service at the Hansen’s disease settlement in Kalaupapa, Molokai, the…Continue Reading

Advertisement

Our Catholic Faith (Section B of print edition)

Catholic Replies

Q. Jesus said, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life within you.” When will Catholics be able to drink from the cup again? — D.L.H., Iowa.A. The practice of receiving Jesus under both the species of bread and wine was halted during…Continue Reading

In The End, Faith Alone Counts

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK Appearances can be deceiving. This overworn adage is so because, human nature being what it is, we must be often reminded of the foolishness, and sometimes the danger, of judging reality purely by what is palpable to our sense of sight. To our eyes, the seeming solidity of the Earth upon which we tread and…Continue Reading

Pondering A Forgotten Virtue: Vengeance

By MSGR. CHARLES POPE (Editor’s Note: Msgr. Pope posted this commentary May 22 on his website, and it is reprinted here with permission.) + + Most of us think that vengeance is merely a vice. And, given improper intentions, or excess or misguided application, it can indeed be a sin and a vice. However, as we read in Scripture, “Vengeance…Continue Reading

Minnesota Legislature Repeals . . . Protection For Born-Alive Infants, Support For Pregnant Women

ST. PAUL — The Minnesota legislature on May 22 approved an Omnibus health bill that repeals a bipartisan measure protecting newborns and a bipartisan program supporting pregnant women who want to carry their babies to term. It also rescinds a number of longstanding laws surrounding abortion. As of this writing, Gov. Tim Walz was expected to sign the wide-ranging bill,…Continue Reading

A Mystery To Ponder For All Eternity

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER Solemnity Of The Most Holy Trinity (YR A) Readings: Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-92 Cor. 13:11-13John 3:16-18 In the readings today, we hear about several attributes of God: grace, mercy, kind, faithful, slow to anger, fellowship, love, and peace. It is also important to note that whenever God is spoken of, it is clear that there is only…Continue Reading

The Devil And The Democrats

By FR. DENIS WILDE, OSA States such as Minnesota, California, Maryland, and others, in all cases with Democrat-controlled legislatures, are on a fast track to not only allow unborn babies to be murdered on demand as a woman’s “constitutional right” but also to allow infanticide.Our nation has gotten so used to the moral evil of killing in the womb that…Continue Reading

Crushed But Unbroken . . . The Martyrdom Of St. Margaret Clitherow

By RAY CAVANAUGH The late-1500s were a tough time for Catholics in England, where the Reformation was in full gear. A 1581 law prohibited Catholic religious ceremonies. And a 1584 Act of Parliament mandated that all Catholic priests leave the country or else face execution. Some chose to remain, however, so they could continue serving the faithful.Also taking huge risks…Continue Reading

Advertisement(2)