Father Frank Pavone, one of the nation’s most well-known pro-life advocates, has been defrocked in what can only be seen as another “priest cancellation” along the lines of what happened to Fr. James Altman.
I say that because Fr. Altman was removed as a parish pastor in large part because of his very public opinion that Catholics cannot vote for Democrats. It appears that that is what the real crux of the problem is with Fr. Pavone, although a lot of defenders of the Antichurch hierarchy are desperately trying to muddy the waters and claim (like the Fr. Altman case) that Fr. Pavone is just “disobedient.” I will attempt to clear the mud in this article.
Context and Background
Context is important. Keep in mind that Fr. Pavone’s laicization comes on the heels of recent appointments of pro-abortion advocates to the Pontifical Academy for Life. Yes, you know the same Academy that Pope John Paul II established to held defend the pro-life position? The most recent pro-abortionist appointment occurred on October 15, 2022.
On November 28, 2022, America Magazine published an interview with Francis wherein he refused to acknowledge that embryos are “persons.” There is much more to be said about this comment because it is setting the Church up to “change” it’s position on abortion. But let’s stay on track here.
With regard to Pavone, the Apostolic Nuncio informed the American bishops in a letter dated December 13, 2022 that as of November 9, 2022, Fr. Pavone was dismissed from the clerical state with no possibility of appeal (which tell us this decision came down from Francis).
Attached to this statement, it said this action was taken because Fr. Pavone was found guilty of “blasphemous communications on social media, and of persistent disobedience of the lawful instructions ofhis diocesan bishop.” It does not state what specific communications were made or what orders from his bishop were disobeyed.
Fr. Pavone has since indicated that he first found out about this decision to remove him from the priesthood when Catholic News Agency contacted him for a comment. Fr. Pavone’s response can be found on his personal website.
Catholic Media Response
It is hard to imagine the timing of this decision is coincidental. For all intents and purposes, there appears to be a concerted effort in the Antichurch hierarchy operating out of Vatican City to change the Church’s position on abortion or at least publicly mollify it, which certainly will appease the globalist Great Reset regime and the American Democrat Party. They are embarrassed by what the real Church, and in this case Fr. Pavone, teaches and does.
What is really interesting is not that Modernists in the Antichurch defrocked a pro-life priest. Rather, it is the reaction from those in the mainstream Catholic media, both in traditional and conservative outlets, that is really raising some eyebrows.
Phil Lawler is one such commentator who felt the need to dig up from the social media grave allegations dating back eleven years against Fr. Pavone and rehash said allegations as if they were never resolved, which in fact they were in Fr. Pavone’s favor. Bringing up eleven year-old disproven allegations in order to somehow justify defrocking one of the most effective and prominent pro-life priests in this nation is lazy, reckless and unfair. Fr. Pavon has publicly responded to these allegations. This information can also be found on Fr. Pavone’s website where a chronology of efforts to silence him by Church officials is chronicled.
But just to give you a flavor. The allegations included that Fr. Pavone refused to disclose the financials of his Priests for Life Ministry (which is a completely separate legal entity from the Catholic Church), which neverthless were all resolved in his favor on appeal. He was cleared of any wrong doing and Pavone’s organization (Priests for Life) was found to be “well adminstered financially” by the Congregation for Clergy in 2012 (see page 24 of Fr. Pavone’s summary above).
There was also the time in 2016 when Fr. Pavone publicly displayed the corpse of an aborted baby on a table during an educational video, a tactic he had used before without any critique from his bishop. The baby was given a proper burial. Some criticized Pavone for descratring an altar with the body of the aborted baby. There are two problems with this. First, Fr. Pavone denied the table was a consecrated altar, and second, even if it was an altar, Church history demonstrates this is not necessarily a prohibited act because relics of martyrs were often so displayed. (See Fr. Nix’s interesting short video on this topic.)
These allegations are several years old and never amounted to much although Fr. Pavone spent years trying to clear his name and reputation from being destroyed by his own superiors. But they are being resurrected now in order to justify the hierarchy’s response to Fr. Pavone’s real crime in their eyes.
Father Pavone’s Real Crime
Fr. Pavone’s real crime was that he joined the Trump presidential campaign and publicly called-out Democrat politicians (especially Biden and Pelosi) on social media. He also made it clear that voting for pro-abortion Democrats is a sin and that he would hear anyone’s confessions who wanted to confess voting for a pro-abortion Democrat. THAT is the most recent kerfuffle that got him in trouble with his bishop.
Here is one of the Tweets that caused so much consternation posted in August 2020:
Canon law does place some limits on an ordained priest’s engagement in political activities without permission of a bishop. When his bishop ordered Pavone to quit the Trump campaign, HE DID SO. Yes, he continued to support Trump and critique Democrats publicly on social media. There is one allegation that he used the “g– d—-” phrase in another Tweet, which he later deleted. That Tweet happened to be in the context of calling out Democrat politicians as well.
As noted above, we can really only speculate on what specific act or Tweet caused the hammer to fall but considering the timeline of events, the Vatican’s public shift towards approving of abortion, and its refusal to publicly discipline prominent Democrat politicians for promoting abortion, it is fairly obvious that Pavone’s political alliances and opinions would not be tolerated—just like Father Altman!
Effect on the War to Purify the Church
What we are dealing with here is a complete apostasy from the faith—and not from Fr. Pavone. I know this should not be news to you. But what we have here is an Antichurch of heretical, communist homosexuals that hijacked the real Catholic Church and continue to operate it as if they are doing God’s work by imposing the condemned heresy of Modernism on the rest of the Church.
The tricky part with all this is that many of these prelates do in fact have valid holy orders. I understand the Sedevacantists might disagree with that statement, but I do not want to get off on a tangent here.
What is important to remember is that a majority of these prelates, who hold themselves out as having apparent authority to make binding decisions for the Church on the local and universal level, are faithless heretics, who are subservient to the globalist Great Reset movement—and by extension—the American Democrat Party. Remember what Biden’s Build Back Better campaign was all about—and Fr. Pavone publicly condemned Biden.
The reality is that Fr. Pavone is a very well-known and prominent pro-life advocate in the United States and is respected and revered by both Catholics and non-Catholics. In fact, I think Fr. Pavone has gone overboard plenty of times in the past in effort to make common cause with non-Catholic groups, but I am willing to give him a pass because the reality is that his impact on the pro-life movement in the past 20 years has been significant. If he did make blasphemous statements on social media then he should delete the comments (which he did) and repent (which he probably did). But does that act, in itself, warrant removing the man from the priesthood in light of his complete body of work? Of course not.
Given Francis’ recent pro-abortion appointments to the Pontifical Academy for Life and his refusal to acknowledge the personhood of embryos, this latest stunt to defrock a priest who dedicated literally his entire life to the cause of ending abortion, is a political timebomb for Rome. And if you don’t think that decision was approved at the top, I have some ocean front property in Amarillo, Texas next to the cathedral that I want to sell you.
Also keep in mind that Fr. Pavone is NOT what most would consider a traditional Catholic priest. He says the New Mass, he used to have a program on EWTN and routinely spouts pro-Vatican II ideas, which make traditionalists cringe. No—Fr. Pavone’s problem is that he publicly attacked the Democrat Party, which cannot be tolerated.
So now we have the conservative, EWTN types once again put into a catch-22 because they are torn between supporting one of the greatest Catholic pro-life advocates in the past 20 years versus supporting a hierarchy that not only relegated the issue of abortion as a public policy matter to the level of recycling soda cans but is beginning of the process of justifying abortion in some cases.
Many have made the strategic decision to throw Fr. Pavone under the bus in order to appear “reasonable.” And they drudge up events from 2011 for which Fr. Pavone was cleared in support of their laughable campaign in defense of “obedience.” The virtue of obedience is not a difficult concept to understand, yet so many in the post-Vatican II world have no clue what it means.
But others are starting to get it—finally. While many John Paul II conservatives could care less about the liturgy or anything that happened before Vatican II, there is a very strong contingent of them that are avid pro-lifers and know very well what Fr. Pavone means to the effort to end the practice of killing unborn babies
Time will tell, but I think Fr. Pavone’s reported laicization could be the tipping point we need to light a match under the lukewarm Catholics out there and may trigger some real questions like: who really is Jorge Mario Bergoglio? And are these people that occupy the Vatican and claim apparent authority really Catholic at all? And if not, what should be done?