Father Pavone (CNS file)
Posted on 09/13/2011 10:55:36 AM PDT by NYer
Father Pavone (CNS file) |
Is thia real? I can”t believe ...another one?
They have presence, but no oversight, because they have been structured to either avoid interventions by antagonistic bishops (usually the case with orthodox ministries) or to create plausible deniability for sympathetic bishops (usually the case with heterodox ministries).
There is a touch of the unnecessary in Priests for Life.
Sounds like a good priest, strict prelate situation.
Good drama in the making, probably a tragedy.
I’ll wait and see on this one. It could go either of two ways.
Fr. Frank Pavone has been doing an excellent job, from what I have seen. In fact, for years he did the job that the bishops neglected to do, fight for the right to life.
This could be financial abuse. Or it could be a jealous bishop who resents Fr. Pavone’s orthodox activities.
Does anyone know anything about Bishop Zureck? Is he orthodox himself? Evidently he was appointed to his present post in January 2008:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Zurek
Unfortunately there are plenty of heterodox priests who do NOT favor life, and more than a few bishops as well, although the situation is improving.
Consider Fr. Jenkins of Notre Dame, for instance.
File under..... "Lessons we have learned from the Corapi and Euteneuer affairs."
I'm not at all surprised by this. I hope this is a preemptive strike by the bishop to get Fr. Pavone out of harms way before there are problems, rather than a reaction to actual allegations of financial impropriety but either way, I'm with the bishop.
The fact is that the most charismatic and inspiring preachers and leaders are rarely good administrators and that good administrators are rarely inspiring and charismatic.
Two very different skillsets. The skilled administrators fill the episcopacy throughout the Church.
It wouldn't surprise me if someone like Fr. Pavone felt that bookkeeping was not the primary concern, while it would not surprise me that a bishop would place a premium on thorough accounting.
Checks and balances.
Good points. This may not turn into a scandal.
As a UMC ordained pastor my Conference leaders demanded that my agency and its holdings be removed absolutely from demoninational involvement. They later asked for my resignation for operating outside the denomination. The madness goes on.
Father Frank Pavone can always benefit from time in prayer and being more humble.
Some people, such as Father Frank Pavone and Mother Teresa, have the problem that other people idiolize them, and make it easy to have the sin of pride.
Mother Teresa had ways to deal with it, though I am sure that she found her fame a problem to have to live with.
In general, putting a metal to the test helps the metal...
A True Metal put to the fire is never hurt by the process of purification -- it just adds beauty and luster to the metal. The fire tends to bleed out any impurities in the metal...
Some quiet time away from PFL will help Father Frank.
Let us keep Father Frank and all priests constantly in our prayers...
There is always the possibility below, although I consider it a probability.
Some of the 45 Communists Goals as of the early 1960s.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
Obviously, the Democrats have been taken over since the early 1900s. Now the Republicans are being compromised, probably through the advice of political consultants.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
Roe vs Wade immediately come to mind as well as the attacks on the 2nd Amendment. I am sure you can name some others.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
Can there be any doubt about the status of this?
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
How else did Obama get to be President of the Harvard Law review?
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
Mission accomplished!
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
Any middle age or older American has seen this unfold before our eyes. Younger ones are witnessing much of it today.
According to this statement by Fr. Pavone, Priests for Life has kept the Bishop informed about their financial dealings, sending him financial reports on a regular basis. They also have gone through independent audits, apparently with flying colors.
It could very well be that the Bishop was questioned, and wanting to be a good administrator, simply wants to assure himself, and the Diocese what is going on.
Fr. Pavone has said he intends to be obedient to his Bishop, so that's good news.
There are no financial irregularities in the management of Priests for Life. They are audited every year, by outside auditors, and pass with flying colors. How many Diocesan Bishops can say this of their own domain?
Father Pavone answers:
“I want to say very clearly that Priests for Life is above reproach in its financial management and the stewardship of the monies it receives from dedicated pro-lifers, raised primarily through direct mail at the grassroots level. To this end, Priests for Life has consistently provided every financial document requested by Bishop Zurek, including annual financial audits, quarterly reports, management documents—even entire check registers! In fact, on June 20, 2011, Priests for Life received the results of its independent audit examination for the year ended December 31, 2010. The organization’s auditors issued an unqualified audit opinion indicating that the financial statements “present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of Priests for Life, in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America”. This marks the tenth consecutive year that the organization’s auditors have provided a ‘clean’ audit opinion, when reporting on the respective year’s financial statements. Priests for Life has been completely transparent with Bishop Zurek and any other bishops who have requested information regarding our management and finances. Indeed, we have 21 bishops and cardinals who sit on our Advisory Board, and they are kept fully informed about our finances.
No doubt the Diocese of Amarillo could use at least one good priest, like Father Pavone. It has been a cesspool in recent years:
Abuse Cases Take Toll on Amarillo Diocese
Allegations, New Policy Worsen Clergy Shortage; One-Third of Parishes without Full-Time Priest
By Steve McGonigle
Dallas Morning News
July 4, 2002
The sexual abuse scandal in the U.S. Catholic Church has taken an especially heavy toll in the Texas Panhandle, where a series of abrupt resignations has worsened a shortage of parish priests.
Almost a third of the 35 parishes in the sprawling Diocese of Amarillo are now without a full-time priest, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.
Five resignations since April involved sexual abuse allegations. Two departures were for other reasons. Three parishes were vacant at the beginning of the year, Cathy Lexa said.
The loss of pastors in the Amarillo Diocese may be the highest percentage of any diocese in the country since the sex abuse scandal erupted anew in January, said Dean Hoge, a professor at Catholic University who studies priest shortages.
When the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops met in Dallas last month to draft a new church policy on sex abuse, conference officials said that at least 250 priests had resigned since the first of the year. In recent weeks, some bishops have begun removing additional priests to meet the newly adopted policy, which requires priests accused of even one act of sexual abuse to be removed permanently from the ministry.
Some dioceses have removed a greater number of priests, but those dioceses are much larger in size and not all of the priests were pastors. The Archdiocese of Chicago, for example, has 10 times the parishes as its Amarillo counterpart and has removed four pastors in the last month.
The sexual abuse crisis has cost Amarillo almost 16 percent of its pastors.
“There is no other diocese that I’ve heard of with a number like that,” Mr. Hoge said. “This is a relatively extreme number, I would say.”
Joseph Galante, coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of Dallas and a spokesman for U.S. bishops on sexual abuse issues, agreed that the numbers in the Amarillo Diocese would reflect a crisis if the pastors could not be replaced.
Given the overall shortage of priests, Bishop Galante said, “I think any diocese would be hard-pressed to replace six pastors at one shot.”
The Amarillo Diocese covers a 26-county area that is home to about 56,000 Catholics. Three-fourths of the diocese’s parishes are located in rural counties.
Monsignor Harold Waldow, who oversees personnel for the diocese, said church officials are responding to the loss of parish priests, in part, by asking remaining priests to supervise additional parishes.
“We will be able to provide the sacramental needs,” he said.
While deacons and lay ministers may help administer a parish and perform some of the duties of a priest, only a priest can lead Mass or hear confessions.
As of last fall, the diocese had 71 priests, 41 of whom were active.
Three priests responsible for four rural parishes resigned last week and two other priests, each of whom headed a rural parish, resigned in April, Monsignor Waldow said Wednesday.
All five priests resigned because of allegations of sexual contact with minors or because of the newly adopted policy, he said.
The numbers do not include a parish priest who notified the diocese last month that he was returning to his order, Monsignor Waldow said. He said he did not know why that priest had resigned.
Monsignor Waldow said the recent exodus of priests began with the resignations of the Rev. Anthony Salazar-Jimenez, pastor of Church of the Holy Spirit in Tulia, and the Rev. Richard Scully, pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Dumas.
Before coming to Texas, Father Salazar-Jimenez, 46, served three years in prison in California for sexual abuse of children. Father Scully, 55, was accused of sexually abusing a teenage boy in a lawsuit filed in Yakima, Wash.
In May, Monsignor Orville Blum, 64, pastor of St. Anthony’s Church in Hereford, was placed on administrative leave after telling his congregation that he had been accused of abusing a former student at Alamo Catholic High School in Amarillo. He resigned as a priest on Friday.
There were two more resignations after Bishop John Yanta returned from the bishops’ meeting in Dallas. He wrote a letter to every priest in the diocese urging anyone who might be affected by the new policy to resign.
The Rev. Neal Dee resigned Friday as pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Groom. The next day, Monsignor Waldow said, the Rev. Dennis Boylan, pastor of Holy Family Church in Nazareth and Holy Name Church in Happy, informed the diocese that he, too, was leaving.
Shortly before he resigned, Father Dee told his parish that he had engaged in sexual misconduct when he was working in the Diocese of Springfield, Ill., said Ms. Lexa, the Amarillo spokeswoman.
A sixth pastor, the Rev. Ted Podson, 54, of St. Francis Catholic Church in Amarillo, told the diocese on June 17 that he was resigning for unspecified reasons to return to the Piarist Fathers, Monsignor Waldow said.
Asked whether Father Podson’s resignation stemmed from any sexual abuse allegations, Monsignor Waldow replied: “I wouldn’t make any comment on that. I’m not too sure at this point.”
When news began to spread about Father Dee’s removal, some at his church wondered who would lead Mass, said parishioner Kathleen Barkley.
“We were worried we wouldn’t have another priest because we’re aware of the shortage and we’re a small town,” said Ms. Barkley, who said she has attended Immaculate Heart of Mary all her life. “We weren’t thinking we would get someone quickly.”
Ms. Barkley said diocesan officials have said they will have a full-time priest by mid-July. She’s hopeful that church leaders will follow through.
Mr. Hoge said parishioners may be in for a long wait.
bishopaccountability.org
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.