Pro-life Priest Fr. Frank Pavone Defrocked

There is another thread all about sermons relating to scripture and being good at educating people. Pavone is a perfect example of a priest who would rather discuss politics and increase his celebrity status than educate his congregation in the liturgy and scripture.

Free speech is fine but using the church as a platform for one's personal and political beliefs is just am abuse of free speech. Pavone was laicized correctly - he is no priest in spirit.

 

I refrained from remarking here at first as I am an ecumenical guest. A few thoughts: Bergoglio is trying not only to rebrand the Roman Church - get rid of the customers you don't want, such as retro Latin Mass kids and loud pro-lifers such as Pavone, and try to attract the customers you do want, such as the Bergoglians' fantasy of hip, happening, politically correct folk - but indeed trying to remake their church, as much as Spong's "Christianity must change or die" schtick. Pavone was an embarrassment to Bergoglio's Vatican and like-minded bishops so hey, hey, ho, ho, anti-abortion activism's got to go. The nice middle-class churchgoers the Bergoglians seek think abortion is icky so they shush all talk about it (seamless garment: hide/ignore Catholic teaching on it behind socially acceptable causes like helping the poor); Pavone shows you pictures of dead babies and campaigns for un-genteel politicians, while using salty Noo Yawk language. I get the argument about priests not politicking but that's not the real issue.

Anyway... if you're a "canon (of scripture), creed, and crosier" kind of Christian as I and most of you are, no, Bergoglio's Rome isn't a haven.

On paper Catholic teaching can't change but in practice that and a quarter will get you a small coffee.

Pavone won't go Eastern rite because Eastern-rite Catholic churches are Catholic, which fired him.

He won't become Orthodox because a sincere conversion would mean really changing his faith, and the Orthodox would see through him if he were only trying to use them. I can't see him being rebaptized - which the Orthodox can do - and retooling for the Byzantine Rite, let alone changing his whole theological mindset, even though he'd still have the creed and the sacraments.

He won't become Anglican, even in the conservative Continuum - again, he's not interested in changing his faith. The Episcopal Church? They're officially pro-choice!

My guess is he'll be all right. Priests for Life actually isn't a Catholic charity but an independent one; ironically you don't have to be a priest to run it. So he can't wear the collar, go by Father, celebrate Mass, officiate at weddings, or absolve anymore. As Catholics say, he can "offer up" that suffering.

Pavone has agreed that his enemies are likely gunning for his excommunication. Bergoglio might do that. Still, Priests for Life is independent so neener.

Meanwhile the sex fiends and the heretics - such as James Martin - in the Roman clergy still get away with it. I wouldn't be surprised if Martin becomes a cardinal.

The next Pope will be another liberal - Bergoglio has stacked the College of Cardinals - and you may see rival Popes.

When Bergoglio's generation and the boomers are dead, the retro Latin Mass Catholics will come back. The Roman Church will be smaller but sounder.

The fight in the Roman Church as in the Anglican ones is ultimately between those who believe the creeds and those who don't anymore.

In the Anglican churches I believe laicization - which, as has been covered, isn't really laicization sacramentally; indelible character so one is still a priest - is called being deposed from the ministry; as there is no Anglican/Episcopal Vatican, the diocesan bishop does that.

 

The First Amendment is irrelevant to the discussion because the portion of the tax code I have referred to has never been struck down by the Courts. There are perfectly good reasons for this. The law prohibits all tax-exempt organizations, not just religious ones, from engaging in overtly partisan political activity. The purpose of the law is to prevent corruption, not to restrict religion. Furthermore, Acts of Congress are by definition ‘constitutional’ unless and until they are either repealed, or declared unconstitutional by a federal Court. Neither of those conditions has been met in this case. What is constitutional and what’s not is for Courts to decide, not private individuals. We’re a nation of laws, not opinions. And you and I both know that ‘free exercise’ doesn’t mean ‘uninhibited activity’, as any religion that, e.g., advocated human sacrifice, or polygamy, would quickly discover. Congress can impose limits on religiously-motivated activity; it just has to impose the same set of rules on all citizens.

 

Exactly. I can't speak for everybody, but I suspect most people don't pay tithes just so they can show up once a week at a building where a person with a collar can tell them how to vote. Functioning adults are perfectly capable of making those decisions on their own.

 

The fact remains, however, that the government is powerless to stop a church minister or priest from talking about election candidates and suchlike. Pulling the church's tax-exempt status is simply taking away the carrot that was being used to lead the church away from exercising its full rights and freedom (guaranteed by the First Amendment). The tax exemption is an artifical device used to influence the church, but that exemption ultimately has no teeth: the minister/priest cannot be prosecuted or anything. So, you see, the law does not prohibit partisan political activity in a church (the law is prohibited by the First Amendment from doing this!); the law merely gives the IRS the right to withdraw its tax exemption, while the partisan political activity in the church may continue at the church's discretion. This is a fundamental legal distinction: US statutory and case law is powerless to stop such activity in churches; all the goverment may do (and what they have done) is to offer a financial incentive for churches to voluntarily muzzle themselves.

Besides that, if anyone thinks the IRS really would pull the tax exemption of the entire behomoth RCC over one priest's remarks, then I have a bridge for sale, cheap.

 

I wouldn't go quite that far (under US law... but AUS law might differ). It would be an abuse of one's position, if it were divorced from moral relevance. But whenever there are moral issues at stake between candidates in an election and whenever Biblical principles have a bearing in which candidate is more likely to serve the people with wise, godly actions, it should be the priest's duty to speak up. In the US, the shame is that churches have allowed themselves to be silenced on legitimate moral issues of broad import and huge potential ramifications, in exchange for unrighteous mammon.

Luk 16:11-14 "If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him.

And people wonder why church attendance is dwindling. People can sense hypocrisy a mile away.

 

Yep, that’s pretty much what I’ve been saying, this whole time… Tax law doesn’t stop churches from saying what they want to say, so appeals to the First Amendment aren’t relevant. I’m not sure why it took all this unnecessary back-and-forth to end up at the same place, but here we are.

The disagreement is that you seem to prefer clergy who get overtly political, and I find that notion abhorrent (no matter which side is doing it). It’s not the clergy’s job to condemn individuals from the pulpit, or claim the right to override individual consciences, by telling parishioners what positions they should hold. A Roman Catholic might hold the former attitude consistently with his faith, but it’s utterly incompatible with Anglicanism, in theory and in practice.

Lurking just beneath the surface, however, is the (false) notion that the Constitution enshrines an absolute right to ‘free speech’, ‘religion’, etc. In a civil society governed by law, there is no such thing as an ‘absolute right’, for the simple reason that the definitions of ‘free’, ‘speech’, ‘religion’, ‘exercise’, etc., are all subject to acts of the Legislature and subsequent interpretation and application by the Courts. There are plenty of categories of speech that are unlawful (and thus not understood to be covered by the First Amendment); some are torts, and some are actually crimes. The same is true for religious organizations, which are subject to the law like everything else. If Congress hypothetically passed a law making the mere utterance of, say, sexist statements a hate crime, that law would apply to religious organizations as well, First Amendment or no First Amendment. ‘Free exercise’ only covers what is already deemed ‘lawful’; there’s no ‘right’ to commit illegal acts, in other words (which is what the notion of an ‘absolute right’ implies).

 

We are here because the God-given rights protected by the First Amendment are the most relevant part of US law, as pertaining to the issue. So I still cannot see how anyone can say, "appeals to the First Amendment aren't relevant." We are "here" because you and I are saying the exact opposite.

I prefer clergy who are not afraid to call a spade "a spade" on moral issues. When the evil agenda of a political candidate will adversely affect the constituency, a godly leader of the faithful should have the freedom and the courage to educate his flock on the potential moral consequences of their votes. If some people find freedom and courage abhorrent, there are plenty of other countries to move to.

No one here has suggested that an absolute right exists. For example, it is criminally punishable to yell "fire" in a crowded theater because it endangers the safety (health and lives) of others. That is the standard for criminal liability. A tort is a civil cause of action, and there is nothing forbidding or preventing a person from committing a tort (such as libel, for example), only the person may be sued and lose money. But this is all beside the point, since the "no absolute right exists" issue was only brought up by you, for you to then dispute as if to show that someone else was mistaken.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone of our nation's history in regard to this issue of discussing politicians or political party platforms from the pulpit. For the first two centuries of our country's existence, such discussions were commonplace. No one during the 1700s, the 1800s, or the first half of the 20th Century would have disputed the right and responsibility of ministers to talk about issues that touched on politics. It happened all the time back then. Only after the passage of the federal income tax could Congress establish (around 1918) tax exemptions for charitable donations, and only in 1954 did 501(c) come into existence. The federal government had no ability to tax church receipts or to affect the free exercise of speech from the pulpit for the first 250+ years of its existence. All of us, however, have grown up under this new scheme that bribes churches into self-limiting their speech, so the vast majority of us are fully adjusted to the false notion that "political speech" (i.e., anything that even touches upon a candidate or election beyond a bland, general encouragement to 'go vote') in the church is somehow wrong. It never was so before 1954, and it should not be so today! The sheep have been lulled to sleep by the crooning of the wolves.

 

I know next to nothing about American Law (thank god) but why is this part of the law "God-given"? Are some parts not God-given? And if so how do we know which parts are which?

 

The idea that our rights are God-given is the one part of the American founding myth I believe in. Other than that I'm a Loyalist: God save the King.

In American law and politics, nobody cries separation of church and state when candidates try to get black ministers to support them.

 

Not so. You wrote above:

Now, what else is this statement supposed to mean, other than that there's a theoretical 'right' to defy a law if an individual believes it is 'contrary to God's will'? That may not be how you meant it, and if so, that's great, but I hardly derived the "absolute right" interpretation from thin air. Say what you will, but exactly none of the Amendments to the Constitution - including the First and the Second - was ever intended to be a plausible pretext for defying the government. There is no such right.

 

It's from our Declaration of Independence, which is considered a "Founding Document", but our law is not based on it. Our jurisprudence is based on our Constitution sans the Preamble. The Constitution itself is thoroughly secular (the first of its kind, to my knowledge), and prohibits religious tests for public office, a national church, and sectarian interference in individuals' private lives. Jefferson himself - along with many of the other Founders, and many of the Framers - was a deist (at best), and the "God" who bestowed these "God-given rights" according to his Declaration was not the Christian God but the supreme unitarian Lawgiver of the Enlightenment and (later) the French Revolution.

 

That's your misinterpretation of my statement, then. Certainly not what I was stating or implying.

 

Our Declaration of Independence (1776) states in part, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..." The concept is that the rights enumerated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (along with several unenumerated ones) are bestowed by God upon humans, and that the Constitution and its Amendments serve as a negative restraint upon government to infringe upon these rights as opposed to a positive bestowal of rights. The government (which is of, by, and for the people) does not have the power to bestow rights; rather, the rights are inherent in the people to begin with. This is a foundational US legal principle.

 

BTW, has anyone bothered to hear "the rest of the story"? Pavone's side of things? To be fair and balanced, it seems like the right thing to do before we judge him to be unworthy of the priesthood. He has written a detailed statement of the circumstances from his point of view. Here is a tiny snippet of information I read:

What was the reason for the dismissal?

They have no reason. For 21 years, they’ve been inventing one reason after another, and none of them have validity. Read the history at www.FrFrankPavone.com and you’ll see what we mean.

Bishop Patrick Zurek of Amarillo, and others who are coaching him, have wanted me to be dismissed from the priesthood for years. Year after year, he failed to give me any assignment in the diocese and also said he didn’t want me working outside the diocese. I said to him in a meeting (witnessed by several others), “You want me out of the priesthood altogether, don’t you?” “Never, never,” he said in a loud voice. A few weeks later he sent me a letter telling me I should ask for dismissal from the priesthood, or else he would make that request of the Holy See.

All along this road, he used different excuses, such as my video of an aborted baby, or my support of President Trump. The Vatican dismissed his complaints at the end of 2019, but then, based on a tweet comment I made in the 2020 election cycle, he renewed his complaints. He turned the tweet into an accusation of “blasphemy,” because, he said, I was declaring that God was sending these people to hell. I was doing no such thing. Rather, I was getting angry and saying things I shouldn’t – a common human experience. So I went to confession and was absolved. This isn’t a reason for dismissal from the priesthood.

He also complained about my repeated “disobedience,” a claim, however, which his own Vicar for Clergy contradicted in letters to the Vatican...​

 

To clarify about Thomas Jefferson: it's fairly clear that he was a monotheist. He may have leaned Unitarian as opposed to Trinitarian, but he did believe that the Creator still has His hand on things:

“…I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our forefathers as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessities and comforts of life, who has covered our infancy with His Providence and our riper years with His wisdom and power, and to whose goodness I ask you to join with me in supplications that He will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils and prosper their measures, that whatever they do shall result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship and approbation of all nations.” (Jefferson's second Inaugural Address -- emphasis added)
​

In addition, although the Declaration of Independence was penned by one man, it was signed by many. And many of those signers were Christian in their beliefs. Here are the statements made by some of those signers:

"I . . . recommend my Soul to that Almighty Being who gave it, and my body I commit to the dust, relying upon the merits of Jesus Christ for a pardon of all my sins." (Samuel Adams)

"On the mercy of my Redeemer I rely for salvation and on His merits; not on the works I have done in obedience to His precepts." (Charles Carroll)

"I John Hancock, . . . being advanced in years and being of perfect mind and memory-thanks be given to God-therefore calling to mind the mortality of my body and knowing it is appointed for all men once to die, do make and ordain this my last will and testament…Principally and first of all, I give and recommend my soul into the hands of God that gave it: and my body I recommend to the earth . . . nothing doubting but at the general resurrection I shall receive the same again by the mercy and power of God. . ."

"With an awful reverence to the great Almighty God, Creator of all mankind, I, John Morton . . . being sick and weak in body but of sound mind and memory-thanks be given to Almighty God for the same, for all His mercies and favors-and considering the certainty of death and the uncertainty of the times thereof, do, for the settling of such temporal estate as it hath pleased God to bless me with in this life . . ." (John Morton)

"...I am constrained to express my adoration of the Supreme Being, the Author of my existence, in full belief of his providential goodness and his forgiving mercy revealed to the world through Jesus Christ, through whom I hope for never ending happiness in a future state..." (Robert T. Payne)

"My only hope of salvation is in the infinite, transcendent love of God manifested to the world by the death of His Son upon the cross. Nothing but His blood will wash away my sins. I rely exclusively upon it. Come, Lord Jesus! Come quickly!" (Benjamin Rush)

"I believe that there is one only living and true God, existing in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. . . . that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are a revelation from God. . . . that God did send His own Son to become man, die in the room and stead of sinners, and thus to lay a foundation for the offer of pardon and salvation to all mankind so as all may be saved who are willing to accept the Gospel offer." (Roger Sherman)

"I think it proper here not only to subscribe to the entire belief of the great and leading doctrines of the Christian religion..." (Richard Stockton)

Conclusion: the Declaration of Independence should not be regarded as the product of mere deism.

Incidentally, it appears that during the latter 1700s the Anglicans made a concerted effort to be named the state religion in this fledgling nation. Prior to the drafting of the First Amendment, Jefferson in 1786 wrote a piece of legislation called the "Statute for Religious Freedom." In it, one can plainly see that the concern on Jefferson's mind was the potential for governmental interference in church matters, not the reverse (church involvement in government). A state religion would have compelled citizens to financially and tacitly support religious beliefs or opinions to which they were opposed, and Jefferson wanted to protect the nation from this.

 

It is what you stated; it’s just apparently not what you meant. (There was no ‘misinterpretation’ on my part: I can’t read minds. )

So, you’re saying that laws should always be obeyed, even if they’re contrary to divine commands? In other words, who has priority in the event that they impose incompatible demands:
- the Church (as authoritative interpreter of the divine will), or
- the State (as authoritative enforcer of the divine will)?

 

Let's put the partial quote into context, ok? Here is what I wrote in post #15:

I was referring to the "political aspects" of any statements made from the pulpit to address issues that more basically are moral/religious issues. The scripture which springs to mind is found in Acts 5:27-29. And when they had brought them, they set them before the council: and the high priest asked them, Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us. Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. So, yes, there is (as you put it) a theoretical right to defy a law if an individual believes it is contrary to God's will. The problem is how you jump from that Biblical principle to the assumption that either I or this principle somehow support an absolute right to disobey the law! Shouldn't it be evident that the right to civil disobedience is a qualified right? No one gets to disobey laws for any reason whatsoever, let alone for no reason at all!

This right is qualified by and predicated upon morality and obedience to the will of God, as He has expressed it to us (primarily in the Bible). A minister of the Gospel must follow his conscience, enlightened by the written word of God and guided by the indwelling Holy Spirit. As a minister, he is under a particular duty to guide and care for the flock entrusted to him. This includes proper teaching concerning what is right and what is wrong, as well as teaching the people that God calls on each of us to do good and to resist evil (not just temptation to do wrong, but the evil around us). One of the ways Christians do good and resist evil is to discern which political candidates are the more likely ones to make laws, orders, and decisions that are just, godly, and moral. A minister is educated in Bible, theology, and morality; he is supposed to be one of the better-equipped individuals at discerning God's will. Therefore it should be a part of the minister's job to teach the congregation at election time by "calling out" candidates who openly oppose morality and godliness.

So for example, if candidate B is running on a platform that included forcing every taxpayer to help pay for abortions or taking legislative action that would ultimately expand the number of abortions, or (for the sake of argument let's suppose) normalizing and legalizing sex with minor children, and if candidate C opposes these things, should a minister be prevented from highlighting the immorality of candidate B's positions as well as the relative contrast to candidate C? I believe it is the minister's duty and moral obligation to lead his congregation toward a wise, God-honoring course of action.

Our faith should reach into all aspects of our lives. Faith does not get "checked at the door" of politics. Many of today's "political issues" were moral issues many centuries before they became political ones.

Faith and the Bible are relevant to all aspects of life. If a priest goes through an entire election season without providing any teaching about how the Bible's principles apply to political questions, he will be acting as if the Bible is irrelevant to political questions. How will his flock ever think that the Bible is relevant for all of life?

Christians are told to be light and salt in the world. Throughout history, Christian influence upon government has been an important element in bringing about justice, godliness, and better lives for all. The spread of Christian influence on government was the primary driving force behind outlawing infanticide, child abandonment, and abortion in the Roman Empire (in AD 374); granting of property rights and other protections to women throughout history; prohibiting the burning alive of widows along with their dead husbands in India (in 1829); and outlawing the painful and crippling practice of binding young women’s feet in China (in 1912), according to historian Alvin Schmidt in his book, How Christianity Changed the World.

In the mid-1830s, when the hottest political issue of the day was slavery, fully 2/3 of the leading US abolitionists were clergymen who preached from their pulpits against the practice. Am I to understand that anyone here would oppose ministerial preaching and teaching against slavery if this issue had come up in modern times instead of in the 19th Century? (The greater question might be, would churches today risk their pocketbooks under 501(c) to stand against slavery?)

As I stated in an earlier post, the "no politics in church" sentiment is a modern innovation foisted upon the churches by government a mere 70 years ago. I strongly believe that when government and society produced this sentiment, they ignorantly did the work of Satan himself.