You'd make a good Nazi, oystir. You follow mass hysteria when it comes to evil leaders and all their wicked deeds. Heil Jorge!
Posted on 12/20/2025 2:19:53 PM PST by ebb tide
The shocking decision to laicize pro-life priest Father Frank Pavone without appeal could only have come from Pope Francis himself, according to a prominent canon lawyer.
In an interview Sunday with Catholic News Agency (CNA), canonist Father Gerald Murray, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York and a regular contributor to EWTN’s “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo,” noted that the Pope alone can issue a decision “against which there is no possible appeal.”
“Only the Pope, who enjoys ‘full and supreme power in the Church’ (canon 332, 1), can issue such a decision against which there is no possible appeal,” Murray said.
As first reported by CNA, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, announced Pavone’s laicization in a December 13 letter to U.S. bishops.
According to Pierre, the prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Clergy approved a decree on November 9 dismissing Pavone from the clergy. Pierre described the pro-life priest’s removal as a “Supreme Decision admitting of no possibility of appeal.”
Moreover, The Pillar reported Monday that the Vatican laicized Pavone using special faculties granted to the Dicastery for the Clergy in 2009, and that method requires the “personal authorization” of the Pope.
“Because every ‘special faculties’ laicization is presented to the pope for his personal authorization, it is a legal act of the pope himself,” the outlet stated.
The Dicastery for the Clergy’s special faculties are an “extrajudicial process” that doesn’t allow for a formal trial in front of a tribunal of judges, according The Pillar.
The Pillar also reported that Bishop Patrick Zurek of the Diocese of Amarillo, Texas, where Pavone was incardinated, petitioned the Vatican for his laicization.
Zurek has publicly clashed with Pavone for years and was one of more than 60 prelates who signed a letter in 2021 urging the U.S. bishops’ conference to halt discussions about denying Communion to politicians who facilitate the murder of children in abortion. Pavone, the longtime national director of Priests for Life, is well-known for his strong public condemnation of pro-abortion politicians and his opposition to giving them the Eucharist.
READ: Pelosi receives Holy Communion at Mass presided over by Pope Francis
The Dicastery for the Clergy charged Pavone with “blasphemous communications on social media” and “persistent disobedience of the lawful instructions of his diocesan bishop” – accusations that Pavone has refuted.
In Murray’s Sunday interview with CNA, however, he noted that laicization is not listed in the Code of Canon Law as a penalty for alleged blasphemy or disobedience:
Furthermore, the Code of Canon Law does not state that the possible penalties for these two offenses include dismissal from the clerical state. Canon 1368 states that a person who utters blasphemy is to be “punished with a just penalty.” Canon 1371 states that “a person who does not obey the lawful command” of his Ordinary “and after being warned, persists in disobedience, is to be punished, according to the gravity of the case, with a censure or deprivation of office or with other penalties mentioned in can 1336, 2-4.
What’s more, Pavone has attested that he has not received formal notice of his removal from the priesthood, which may also present problems under canon law, according to Murray:
Ordinarily, the priest who has received such a penalty is informed in a timely fashion. It would be interesting to know if and when Father Pavone received a copy of the decree in which the Supreme Decision was handed down and to see if the decree further specified the grounds upon which a decision was reached that he was guilty of blasphemy and disobedience.
[…]
Since the Holy See has chosen to impose this punishment that goes beyond what is foreseen in the Code of Canon Law, it would have been incumbent upon the diocesan bishop and the Holy See to warn Father Pavone that, if found guilty, he would face such a punishment that went beyond the provisions of the Code.
Puerto Rican Bishop Daniel Fernández Torres, whom Pope Francis abruptly removed from his diocese earlier this year over his opposition to vaccine mandates, similarly did not receive formal notice of his dismissal even months after news of the decision went public.
“Fr. Marko Rupnik is excommunicated in 2019 for sexually abusing religious sisters and then absolved them in Confession. However, this same priest was permitted by the Holy See to create the logo for the 2022 World Meeting of Families,” she noted.
“What appears to many of us Catholics who love our Church is selective ‘mercy’ from the Pope of Mercy.”
Pope Frank II. Only worse.
Is it really true there is no a[peal if the Pope decides it? I thought canon law provided for appeal? (The Hawaii SEix [Is that their name?] won their appeal.]
Was he specifically laicized for his pro-life work, or was there something personal?
Blasphemy is something very specific, is that what he was doing?
There was a Jesuit in the 1970's who ran and won in a Congressional race, Robert Drinan. [Jesuits tend to not consider themselves Catholic.] He was in office for 8 years, but John Paul II ordered all clergy not be in electoral office, so he left and was replaced by Barney Frank. He remained politically active, and rabidly pro-abortion, including partial-birth abortion.
Fr. Pavone was not running for office, as far as I know. Is being publicly pro-life now considered being "too political?"
Can a priest who has been laicized licitly perform Mass, with no one else in attendance?
This article is claiming it was done by Pope Francis, before Pope Leo was involved.
But, presumably being pro-life was not included in that, since Pope John Paul II was publicly pro-life, and witnessed many others, like Mother Teresa doing so publicly.
So pavone gets fired, with total removal of office. Only a few vocationals support fired pavone. One of the few is fired strickland.
fired strickland gets fired. One of a very limited number of his vocational supporters is the already fired pavone.
torres gets fired. maybe torres gets TWO supporters - the fired pavone and the fired strickland!!!!
This is quite the exclusive club of fired losers. A regular circular firing squad. All one has to do to join is to abuse priestly privilege and disregard Church unity. A lesson for you ebby is though not many want to join this exclusive except sspxers, the disillusioned and the anti-Catholic - hey, maybe you are a charter member!
Things went south under Francis. Unfortunately, things appear to be heading south at an even faster pace under Leo. How could Catholics have expected any better since Francis had appointed around 80% of the College of Cardinal voting members?
You'd make a good Nazi, oystir. You follow mass hysteria when it comes to evil leaders and all their wicked deeds. Heil Jorge!
The Hawaii Six were "excommunicated" by their own bishop and appealed to the Vatican, which overrode the "excommunication". All of them were lay persons so no one was laicized.
As far as any Catholic should be concerned Fr. Pavone is and always has been a Priest. He should conduct himself as such, the corrupt anti Catholic leaders in the church be damned!
Here, here!!!!
I don’t know how any Catholic or any person of good will could consider what happened to Fr. Pavone to be just.
AMEN!
Oystir definitely has never had good will; and I doubt he’s even a Catholic.
Well, my confessor would disagree with you ebby. Do you have a spiritual advisor or confessor, ebby? Maybe ignorance, name-calling, judgement, hatred towards the Church and the less fortunate could be your topics? What do yo think, ebby? What are your topics? You shouldn’t want to join this exclusive club of losers(even though it seems to only include vocations...you escaped!)
I have no animus towards these men. They freely chose ego and pride, opportunity, disobedience, secular politics and church politics over their vows, their flock, their obedience, humility and meekness. Maybe they too should seek a confessor - someone not aligned politically?
I’m not surprised you would call the pointing out of Jorge’s Homos in the Catholic prelature, “hatred”.
It seems the sodomites in the Church is all you care about.
Imagine that!
Sodomites are your daily fetish, ebby; not mine.
Anyhow, instead of denigrating me, or others on FR, why don’t you address the issues of post 17 as they are more relevant than name-calling and and your characteristic of dodging issues?
Already addressed.
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