Vatican Defrocks Anti-Abortion Priest Who Heads ‘Priests For Life’
Defrocked Priest Responds to Vatican, Isn't Backing Down: 'We're Not Going Anywhere'
A well-known Catholic priest who has for decades been a prominent figure in the pro-life movement has been defrocked by the Vatican. Frank Pavone, the 63-year-old founder of Priests For Life, a high-profile, pro-life organization, was purportedly removed from the priesthood Nov. 9 with no chance for an appeal. The Vatican made the shocking move after charges Pavone is guilty of "blasphemous communications on social media" and "persistent disobedience" in communications with his bishop, USA Today reported. The startling story of Pavone's laicization broke after Catholic News Agency reviewed a letter reportedly sent to U.S. bishops from Archbishop Christophe Pierre, Vatican ambassador to the United States, detailing the dismissal. Pavone joined CBN's Faithwire to discuss the matter and to proclaim he has no plans to stop his pro-life work. Here's what he had to say.
BY RICK MORAN
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
Frank Pavone, who leads the advocacy group Priests for Life and was once a spiritual advisor to Donald Trump when he was president, has been removed from the priesthood by the Vatican.
No specifics of why Pavone was defrocked have been given by the Vatican, but Pavone has frequently clashed with his superiors over some of the language he has used in his social media postings.
A letter from the papal nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, to Pavone informing him of the action — called “laicization” — was vague. “This action was taken after Father Pavone was found guilty in canonical proceedings of blasphemous communications on social media, and of persistent disobedience of the lawful instructions of his diocesan bishop,” it states.
Pierre may have been talking about a tweet from 2020 that included some very unpriestly characterizations. In it, Pavone referred to “supporters of this goddamn loser Biden and his morally corrupt, America-hating, God-hating Democrat party.”
The letter from the papal nuncio in the U.S. was addressed to the bishops, alerting them of the decision.
The statement said that Mr. Pavone was given “ample opportunity to defend himself” as well as “multiple opportunities to submit himself to the authority of his diocesan bishop.”
“It was determined that Father Pavone had no reasonable justification for his actions,” it says.
The statement said the future of Mr. Pavone’s role at Priests for Life would be entirely up to the group, which it described as “not a Catholic organization.”
“As you will know, Father Pavone was a very public and high-profile figure associated with the Right to Life Movement in the U.S.,” Archbishop Pierre states. “His dismissal from the clerical state may, therefore, be a matter of interest among the faithful.
Pavone promised to keep fighting.
And Pavone has legions of supporters, including consecrated bishops.
It’s difficult to unpack the politics of the Vatican because so much happens behind the curtains. But we can speculate that Pope Francis himself either approved the decision or stepped aside to allow it to happen. Priests don’t get defrocked every day, and a well-known priest like Frank Pavone must have transgressed beyond a few curses on Twitter to force the hand of the Holy Father and receive the ultimate priestly punishment.
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It may very well have been that Pavone was too loud in his opposition to abortion. Francis is trying to keep the Catholic Church in America from tearing itself apart over abortion. In the U.S., as in some western countries, the church’s anti-abortion activism has led to a split between pro-life and pro-abortion camps that are being fought from the top down. From the Conference of Catholic Bishops to the smallest parish, there are divisions that have roiled the church.
Pavone won’t be silenced, which begs the question of why Pope Francis and Pavone’s enemies wanted to defrock him in the first place. All they’ve done is raise his profile and turn him into a martyr.
And that will surely help his cause going forward.