Vatican Fires Pro-life Priest Who Brought Jane Rowe (v. Wade) to ChristWhat is going on in the Catholic Church?
This post is not meant to be an attack on or an indictment of the Catholic Church. Instead, it poses a question... On December 13th, under cover of the Christmas season (Advent), the Catholic Church quietly revealed that Father Frank Pavone had been formally “dismissed from the clerical state” and there was “no possibility of appeal.” Pavone was canned for what it claimed were claims of “blasphemous communications on social media” and “persistent disobedience”. His bishop had repeatedly ordered him to stop his partisan activism for Donald Trump’s pro-life U.S. Supreme Court nominees. Frank Pavone remains one of this country’s most influential pro-life leaders. Priests for Life, the organization he still heads, has been a powerful advocate for the unborn for over 30 years. In 2016, Pavone became a very vocal supporter of Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump, even serving on multiple official campaign outreach programs. Canon Law forbids clergy to have an active role in political parties without permission from their bishop. Strangely enough, as of this writing in late December, Pavone claims he has not yet been officially informed of his dismissal. Forced exits like this are usually only reserved for extreme situations, like the 2018 dismissal of Rev. Theodore McCarrick. McCarrick was an American Archbishop and Cardinal in the Roman Catholic church who was dismissed after a series of credible allegations of sexual misconduct. Pavone is undoubtedly an activist... In his 2020 tweets that were later deleted, Pavone called Joe Biden a “f***ing loser,” accused the Democratic Party of being “God-hating” and “America-hating,” and claimed that Biden’s supporters “can’t say a f***ing thing in support of their loser candidate without using the word Trump.” He then asked, “What the hell do you have to say for yourselves, losers?” Pavone also admits to writing “G*d d*mn” in a 2020 response to a tweet. Is “G*d D*mn a form of blasphemy? The short answer is yes. The third commandment (second if Catholic) prohibits taking God’s name in a light or frivolous manner rather than giving proper respect to who He is. It is definitely beneath the dignity of a Christian to wish someone damned for all eternity. (Jesus spoke of another form of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit as an ongoing, deliberate, insulting rejection of God that becomes unforgivable.) At the same time, some bishops in the Catholic Church hate Pavone’s work. They are uneasy with his strong pro-life viewpoint. One bishop told him... “Frank, you are too aggressive on abortion”. Pavone replied, “as soon as abortion stops being aggressive on the little babies that it dismembers and decapitates, then you come and talk to me.” In Pavone’s words, “Why would some in the church oppose it? Well, the bishops have said, ‘We don’t like the emphasis you put on abortion.’ Alright. ‘We don’t like the politics. We don’t like you supporting pro-life candidates.’ What do they want me to do, support pro-abortion candidates like some of them do? No thanks. Everything we’ve taught and done has been in accord with the teachings of the Church.” Frank Pavone was there in 1995 when Jane Roe (real name Norma McCorvey) repented and admitted that she had lied under oath about being raped to advance her case. She was baptized and became a pro-life activist and author. In 1998, because of the influence of Fr. Pavone, Norma began working as a pro-life advocate. The abortion lobby has tried to spin her conversion as fake and done only for financial gain… but on the day Norma died, she urged Father Pavone to continue fighting to overturn Roe v. Wade... which he did. Only God knows how many unborn babies were spared because of her efforts. (Lost in all of this is the fact that Norma McCorvey never had an abortion.) Yes, Frank Pavone did break the rules and should be held accountable for that. But the question is this: Did his punishment fit the “crime”? Over the years, “the rules” seem selectively and inconsistently enforced by the Catholic Church hierarchy. There are numerous examples of priests preaching heresies and supporting evil without resulting in punishment. Pedophilia and homosexuality within the clergy has run rampant for decades, with more obfuscation than punishment. The Pope allowed the Pachamama idol to be venerated during a 2019 Papal visit to South America. Pachamama is an Incan fertility goddess worshiped in the Amazon region. Several statues of Pachamama were used in various ceremonies in the Vatican during the visit. One such event was a pagan ceremony where Pachamama statues were blessed in Vatican Gardens to promote the Pope’s message of “inclusivity”. The Pachamama statues placed in the Santa Maria church were later removed by conservative priests and thrown into a nearby river. Incredibly, the Pope condemned this act by the priests and apologized to the local bishops. In Early 2022, Pope Francis ordered the crucifix removed from the papal podium because he did not want to offend illegal Muslim migrants during a trip to Malta. Instead, the cross was replaced with a display of recycled plastic bottles in deference to climate alarmists. The Catholic-Muslim Interfaith Council, created By Pope Francis, announced its new Chrislam One World Religion Headquarters was scheduled to open in late 2022. To be known as the Abrahamic Family House, it will consist of a mosque, a church, and now a synagogue, along with an educational center to be built on Saadiyat Island, the cultural heart of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. The fact that the Vatican continues to offer Holy Communion to abortion, homosexuality, and transgender advocates like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi is the same as saying that God approves such things. On the other hand, one courageous Catholic Bishop, J. Strickland (@Bishopoftyler), tweeted, “The blasphemy is that this holy priest is canceled while an evil president promotes the denial of truth and the murder of the unborn at every turn, Vatican officials promote immorality, and denial of the deposit of faith* and priests promote gender confusion devastating lives… evil!” And now, the Vatican suddenly has a problem with a pro-life priest? It’s easy enough to see how the dismissal of Pavone might be a vindictive act against someone whose politics do not agree with the current regime in Rome. Is this a case of a conservative priest being canceled by the Vatican? Is it about a rogue priest gone bad? Probably neither... The issue here is the overt inconsistency of message. The Catholic church is giving its faithful and the rest of the world a troubling mix of confusing signals. *The deposit of faith is the body of revealed truth in the scriptures and sacred tradition proposed by the Roman Catholic Church for the belief of the faithful. Subscribe for free to receive new posts... Read American Faith & Freedom in the app Listen to posts, join subscriber chats, and never miss an update from Jim McCraigh. |
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