Antiabortion activist dismissed from priesthood for ‘blasphemous communications’

The letter was first reported Saturday by the Catholic News Agency. Its authenticity was confirmed to The Washington Post by a source close to multiple U.S. bishops.

Pavone, the national director of the group Priests for Life, has addressed crowds at the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., and sits on the board of directors for the National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL). He participated in 2016 and 2020 in pro-Trump Catholic groups working in tandem with the former president’s campaigns. He appeared on his social media platforms in a red MAGA hat.

Such partisan activism is almost never seen by Catholic clergy.

Within the antiabortion movement, Pavone is known for the incendiary statements he makes online, which often go beyond what many mainstream antiabortion advocates say publicly. For example, he has spoken about his belief that abortion is never necessary to save a mother’s life.

He is most widely known among Catholics, for whom he is a polarizing figure at a time when the U.S. church seems divided between pro- and anti-Trump believers, between people who can’t believe a Catholic president who supports abortion rights can be given Communion and those who think an alliance with Trump is heretical.

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Charles Camosy, a moral theologian at the Creighton University School of Medicine who writes often about abortion, noted that Pavone has been controversial for many years, and that he became more so in 2016, when two days before the presidential election he posted a live video on Facebook of an aborted fetus laid out on a table that he was using like an altar. In the video, he said a vote for Hillary Clinton was for “child killing” and one for Trump and the Republicans was for protecting children.

“Over the years, and especially since 2015, he seemed to get consumed by secular politics. But he is certainly not alone in that,” Camosy said. His laicization “is a long time coming, actually.”

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The Rev. Patrick Mahoney, a Presbyterian pastor active on social causes including the antiabortion movement, said Monday that Pavone is an “icon” and mentor to many antiabortion activists. Even if some — like Mahoney himself — struggle with Pavone’s activism for Trump, he said the former priest seemed the victim of a double standard.

“Why is Father Frank laicized, when you have other priests who clearly support doctrines not in line with the Catholic Church? Same-sex marriage, being pro-choice, pro-LGBT, whatever it might be,” he said. “There is confusion and anger. … the fault lines are being drawn right now in a major battle between orthodox and conservative Catholics and more progressive Catholics and especially the authority of Pope Francis.”

Pavone’s situation wasn’t entirely clear Monday. The letter sent by Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the Pope’s representative to the United States, to bishops included a statement they could use to discuss the laicization with their members, but the statement wasn’t signed.

In a statement Monday, Pavone still referred to himself as “Father Pavone” and said his work would not be “deterred in any way.”

He has been associated with several dioceses over the years and it isn’t clear who his superior is at this time. The statement that accompanied Pierre’s letter says Priests for Life “isn’t a Catholic organization.” He was under the Diocese of Amarillo in 2016, when the bishop there, Patrick Zurek, said his use of a fetus was “against the dignity of human life” and “not consistent with the beliefs of the Catholic Church.”

Pavone could not immediately be reached for comment.

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Pavone said in a video posted online soon after news broke of his dismissal that he has been “persecuted” by the Catholic Church for decades.

In a 26-page letter posted on the Priests for Life website, Pavone outlines what he calls a “Summary of How Fr. Frank and Priests for Life Have Been Treated by Some in the Hierarchy.”

“Instead of supporting and encouraging the pro-life work of the Church, some of these men try to obstruct and hinder it, and abuse their authority to try to intimidate priests and laity who make ending abortion the top priority of our lives,” Pavone wrote. “… Cancel culture is alive and well in the Catholic Church.”

Pavone has been censured by high-ranking leaders including Zurek.

After the 2016 video, Zurek opened an investigation.

Zurek suspended him from activities outside that diocese in 2011, citing “deep concerns” about the stewardship and alleged lack of transparency around the money being raised by Priests for Life. Recent 990 forms show the group raised more than $9 million in 2019 and again in 2020.

“It seems that (Father Pavone’s) fame has caused him to see priestly obedience as an inconvenience to his unique status,” Zurek wrote to other bishops in 2011, according to the Catholic Review, the Baltimore Archdiocese’s news service.