By DEXTER DUGGAN
The surprise laicization of longtime pro-life leader Fr. Frank Pavone may have more of a negative impact on the Vatican authorities who returned him to the lay state than on Pavone himself, who continues as national director of the Florida-based Priests for Life (priests
forlife.org), but without a Roman collar.
Pavone recently responded to a number of questions by The Wanderer, as reported later in this article.
The necessity of owing obedience to his bishop could be the core of the issue. Pavone’s view is that he has a priestly vocation specifically to the pro-life cause, not simply the priesthood, and it is up to a bishop to accommodate that.
His troubles began early in this century when the archbishop of New York, Edward Cardinal Egan, attempted to reassign Pavone to New York parish work, although Pavone said that Egan’s predecessor, the late John Cardinal O’Connor, wished him to be dedicated to the pro-life cause.
Pavone succeeded in being incardinated to a very different diocese, Amarillo, Texas, in 2005 under Bishop John Yanta, who was approaching retirement age. When Yanta was succeeded by Bishop Patrick Zurek, the issue of priestly obedience and pastoral assignment returned — and remains a strong dispute.
Many people, both Catholic and non-Catholic, may view the late-2022 laicization as another example of discrimination against a traditional conservative pro-lifer by left-leaning powerbrokers.
A commentary posted on December 26 at the website of the conservative Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC) — certainly not an organization of the Catholic Church — was headlined, “Defrocked for Opposing Abortion? Yes.”
The author, a non-Catholic, Robert B. Charles, concluded: “Summary dismissal of moral convictions and moral people is becoming the norm. This defrocking is an ugly turn. Faith in a loving God — even defense of right and wrong — is under fire. Those who speak for rights including life — should not be vilified. If society is to persevere, we must learn to hear — those of heart. That is not an end, just a start.”
Charles is a veteran of Republican administrations in Washington, D.C.
The fact that Pavone didn’t learn that he had been laicized in November until more than a month later — until a news agency asked him about it — appears startling.
Eric Sammons, the editor-in-chief of Crisis magazine, posted a thoughtful article on December 20, titled, “The Sad Case of Frank Pavone,” noting Pavone as a pro-life hero who, however, had “a long history of tussles with the Church hierarchy.”
But one thinks of laicization as reserved for “only a small number of outrageous situations (think Theodore McCarrick),” Sammons said.
Sammons wrote: “Edward Cardinal Egan succeeded O’Connor in New York in 2000. He wanted Pavone to return to parish work, and herein lies the root cause of all Pavone’s later battles with the Church. Pavone sees his full-time pro-life work as a vocation, not just an assignment. Whether or not O’Connor saw it the same way is unknown, but it’s clear that all of Pavone’s superiors since O’Connor disagreed with this assessment.
“To them, Pavone’s pro-life work was always simply an assignment,” Sammons wrote, “much like a priest’s assignment to a parish or hospital. Assignments can be changed as desired by the proper Church authorities. Pavone fundamentally disagreed.”
Indeed, various reactions to the laicization said that heterodox and even heretical-sounding priests continue un-rebuked in full public view, but dedicated pro-lifer Pavone is kicked out of the ministry without the courtesy of so much as a direct notice from the Vatican.
What if, unwitting, he had, say, been performing marriages and hearing confessions in the meantime? (Pavone tells The Wanderer that he had not.)
Moreover, an observer sees some of the worst sort of disobedient U.S. Catholics — pro-abortion, gender-bending fanatics Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi — recently hobnobbing with Pope Francis at the Vatican without receiving a public word of rebuke.
These politicians are, of course, not clergy but laity. However, they confuse countless people of any or no religion by falsely claiming to be faithful Catholics, despite the scandal they give. Has some leftist prelate misguided these politicians about the care of their souls?
Biden even claimed that Francis privately said Biden is a good Catholic. Could such a grave error actually have been spoken? When Biden made the claim, the Vatican chose not to confirm or deny!
Even though Francis plainly has condemned abortion, he or his advisers seem reluctant to draw the necessary link between this deadly work of a “hitman” and the left-wing politicians this Vatican has a fondness for — who, unfortunately, make permissive abortion the foundation of their platform.
Meanwhile, Pavone continued to work his heart out for the unborn but suddenly is told by Catholic News Agency that he no longer is a priest, and that no appeal of the decision is possible.
Which apparently means that the Pope himself consented to or even initiated the action, because if the decision came from lower down, it could be appealed to the Church’s highest authority, the Vicar of Christ.
Pavone, very obviously, kept calling attention to the pro-abortion fanaticism of the Democratic Party, which wouldn’t sit well with prelates who seem to have pals they don’t want to offend in that party.
A recent post at the Priests for Life website is titled, “Donate: He is being obedient, but they’re attacking him in order to silence you.”
If a person clicks on this title, a message comes up that reads in part: “Pope Francis has told Frank Pavone (affectionately known worldwide as ‘Father Frank’) that he cannot be a priest or wear priestly clothing. He will, of course, be obedient and will now refer to himself as Pro-life Leader Frank Pavone. . . .
“Frank Pavone has a devotion to St. Padre Pio, an Italian priest who received the holy wounds of Christ on his body and had other spiritual gifts,” the message continues. “He was stripped of his priestly faculties and silenced for almost a decade, until subsequent popes restored him to public ministry and dismissed all accusations against him.
“He also asks the intercession of two other saints who knew him and Priests for Life and strongly blessed and encouraged that work: Mother Teresa, and St. John Paul II (under whom he worked at the Vatican for some years),” the message says.
“As for his pro-life vocation and work,” it says, “Pavone vows: ‘Our pro-life work isn’t slowing down one bit!’”
Here is a Wanderer Q-and-A with Pavone:
Q: Why do you think no competent Church authority informed you of your own laicization, but you learned of it from CNA? They thereby allowed you to perform priestly duties in good faith although they had removed your competence? Did you perform any baptisms, confessions, or other functions in addition to saying Mass? Did you say Sunday Masses for anyone who thereby believed they were fulfilling their obligation?
A: I have no idea why my canonical team in the U.S. and in Rome have not received official communication of this. My ministry, of course, is primarily preaching, teaching, networking and publishing, so no, I have not been entrusted with any sacramental duties. The Masses I broadcasted, up until the time I heard about this (December 17th, after Mass), were not in the category you mention. I offer that Mass alone, with the cameras on.
Q: Regardless of your difficulties with some prelates, do you currently acknowledge that you cannot act in the ministerial priesthood?
A: That’s up to them, of course, as my video here conveys: https://youtu.be/Znxk7d7ir-0 This has to do with priestly functions, of course.
Q: In your Laura Ingraham [Fox News] interview, you apparently concluded with the thought that you can wait out this pope. But what if he is succeeded by a pontiff with similar views?
A: Then I will continue as I am now, doing vigorous full-time pro-life work with the full support of all our ministries.
Q: Whatever the reason for your difficulties with some prelates, do you regret having used much time on this issue rather than more productive pursuits?
A: Fortunately, I have a big team and these matters are handled by the Canonical team (several people here in the States and several in Rome). The rest of the staff (we employ 50 people) have not slowed down at all in their work on our many projects, and I personally haven’t, either. But to the extent that we have devoted time to this, it has all been necessary defense under attack.
Q: Do you accept responsibility yourself for any of these difficulties?
A: In one sense, all responsibility; in another sense, none. At any time, if I had walked away from my pro-life mission and been quiet about it, the attacks would have ceased. In the same way, Jesus could have avoided the Crucifixion.
At the same time, the attacks constitute a one-sided narrative that they wrote from the beginning and carried out with a deaf ear to anything we said and a blind eye to all we did. So in the end, it’s their problem, not mine. My position has always been consistent: I’m giving myself full-time to the defense of the unborn and asking the blessing of the Church to do so.
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