First, it works “to galvanize the clergy to preach, teach, and mobilize their people more effectively in the effort to end abortion and euthanasia,” primarily through talks, training seminars, videos posted on social media, and participation in pro-life events around the U.S. and abroad.
Second, it supports a “family” of affiliated pro-life ministries including Rachel’s Vineyard, a retreat program for women and men who have lost children to abortion, and the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, which encourages those who now regret their abortions to speak out about their experiences.
In addition to these efforts, Priests for Life sees “working for greater unity within the pro-life movement” as integral to its mission. But some pro-life leaders say Pavone’s handling of the crises he’s faced in recent months is having the opposite effect.
Monica Migliorino Miller, director of the Michigan-based group Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, said she was disappointed that Pavone gave no advance warning to her and other pro-life leaders about the Vatican’s severe sanctions, which came after a formal canonical process in Rome.
“His dismissal from the priesthood came as a total shock to me as I thought his difficulties with his bishop were resolved,” Miller told CNA. “Apparently that was not the case.”
In response to media inquiries about these issues, Pavone has frequently referred back to a 13,600-word, 26-page-long PDF document posted to his personal website detailing, from Pavone’s perspective, his “persecution” by Bishop Zurek and other Church leaders, going back to his early conflicts with Cardinal Edward Egan in the early 2000s when Priests for Life was based in Staten Island, New York.
Scheidler, the head of the Pro-Life Action League, told CNA he was shocked when Pavone referred him to the same document when he asked Pavone about the controversies.
“Why is he asking me to read a 30-page website and hundreds of documents to answer my three, four simple questions, instead of just answering them?” Scheidler asked.
Reading Pavone’s account after Pavone continued to be evasive in meetings with pro-life leaders only added to his dismay, he said.
Over his 17 years as a priest of the Diocese of Amarillo, Pavone appears to have disobeyed Bishop Zurek's instructions on several occasions, including a 2014 order that Pavone was not to appear in the media and a 2016 order — issued soon after the incident with the aborted baby — not to celebrate Mass publicly or wear his clerical garb.
Pavone has circulated a pair of letters he says support his claims that Zurek was determined to get rid of him., one of which was written in March 2016 by the late Monsignor Harold Waldow, then Amarillo’s vicar of clergy, attesting to the “personal animus” Zurek exhibited toward Pavone.
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Scheidler said Pavone’s lack of transparency about these conflicts and sanctions has hurt the reputations of pro-life organizations that have associated themselves with Priests for Life over the years.
“I found just a pattern of obfuscation, of equivocation, of dividing and conquering,” Scheidler said of his reading of Pavone's account. “He was always trying to set the Vatican off against the U.S. bishops, one bishop off against another.”
More recently, Scheidler said he was deeply disturbed by Pavone saying that he is being “aborted” for his pro-life activism.
“So in every profession, including the priesthood, if you defend the #unborn, you will be treated like them!” Pavone tweeted on Dec. 17, 2022. “The only difference is that when we are ‘aborted,’ we continue to speak, loud and clear.”
“The fact that Frank presented himself as a victim, the fact that he compared himself to an aborted baby … I’ve heard this guy speak so eloquently about the unborn child, but then make this bizarre comparison to himself, no matter how extreme of a punishment laicization is, to suggest that that’s like being aborted is just bizarre. It’s unhinged,” Scheidler said.
Herb Geraghty, a secular pro-life leader with Rehumanize International who also resigned from the Pavone-led private forum, similarly expressed frustration about Pavone’s ambiguous comments about the sexual harassment charges leveled against him. Pavone has never specifically refuted the allegations publicly, saying instead that he is “enormously saddened by recent efforts of some to revisit old accusations that contain numerous inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and mistruths, that have already been addressed.”