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NEW YORK, August 6, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life has issued a statement opposing President Obama’s appearance at a New York fundraiser dinner for Catholic Charities. “I’m all in favor of protocol and understand the difference between respecting the President’s policies vs. respecting his office. But there comes a time when the polite putting aside of differences for a while amounts to scandal,” said Pavone in a statement emailed to LifeSiteNews.com Monday morning. LSN confirmed the president’s appearance last week. “There comes a time when enough is enough and we can no longer afford to...

The pro-life Catholic group Priests for Life is the first to announce it will openly defy the new pro-abortion mandate the HHS department put in force today under the Obamacare health care law. The new mandate compels religious employers to pay for and refer employees for birth control, abortion-causing drugs and contraception in violation of employers’ religious beliefs. Father Frank Pavone told LifeNews his pro-life group doesn’t qualify for the narrowly-drawn exemptions in the mandate, so his organization will not comply with it and will run the risk of fines and other possible punishment. “The unjust and unconstitutional HHS mandate,...

ROME, ITALY, July 2, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life has not been suspended, said the Vatican’s Congregation for Clergy in May, but his bishop has the right to assign him duties outside his pro-life ministry, according to the Diocese of Amarillo. Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life. Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life. Amarillo Bishop Patrick Zurek reported that the Vatican body granted at least a partial victory for the Priests for Life leader, who had petitioned Rome for clarification after Zurek announced that he had “suspended” Fr. Pavone last September. According to...

Clarification of Status of Priests for Life Regarding Priests for Life’s canonical status within the Catholic Church: Priests for Life is a Private Association of the Christian Faithful, which received its canonical recognition and approbation from Archbishop John Quinn of San Francisco on April 30th 1991. Priests for Life is recognized as a valid apostolate to which bishops and religious superiors may assign priests full time and part time; it is recognized by the Vatican as an entity with which various dicasteries actively collaborate; it is recognized by bishops around the world as they invite us into their dioceses to...

February 14, 2012 (PriestsforLife.org) - Many have asked me whether I think that the President’s announced “accommodation” regarding the HHS mandate for health insurance coverage of abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives, and sterilization is acceptable. Absolutely not. As many Catholics and non-Catholics point out, the principal problem is that the mandate is still in place. The President’s February 10 announcement changed none of that. What remains is that all employers — not just religious ones — have to provide health insurance for their employees, and all health insurance plans have to cover abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives, and sterilization. It’s a fiction to say...

WASHINGTON, January 25, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Many pro-lifers at the March for Life this year caught a glimpse of one prominent pro-life leader they might not have been expected to see. Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life was sighted leading a crowd of post-abortive witnesses with Silent No More through the freezing rain on Capitol Hill Monday, and met with LifeSiteNews.com the following day to give an update on his situation with his Ordinary, Bishop Patrick Zurek of the Diocese of Amarillo. Bishops Zurek’s abrupt statement ordering Pavone to suspend his active ministry outside the diocese, citing unspecified questions...

The Priests for Life website is now showing Father Frank Pavone attending the March for Life -- in Washington, DC as well as the West Coast event as well. His tentative travel schedule consists of about 10 or more trips between now and June regarding Priests for Life.

"Why should the Knights of Columbus mediate/intervene in this crisis?"

Question: “When abortion becomes illegal again, are we going to start throwing all the women who have abortions into jail?” Answer: No. The people who should go to jail in that case are the abortionists. This particular question will be raised more and more as we to come closer to restoring protection to the unborn. The question is actually part of the well-planned public relations attack that abortion advocates always try to make on us in the pro-life movement. We are anti-woman, after all. Isn’t that the only logical reason why we would oppose abortion in the first place? That’s...

No one questions whether Bishop Patrick Zurek had the authority to place Father Frank Pavone on forced hiatus.Good people do question whether the bishop’s decision was warranted.That dispute aside, the bishop certainly must have realized that to abruptly and without warning bar Father Pavone from fulfilling his pro-life speaking obligations for an undefined period would create havoc among churches and pro-life groups planning and publicizing those events.It seems to me a compassionate spiritual leader would attempt to mitigate the damage his decision caused to innocent bystanders.One important event caught in the crossfire was the International Pro-Life Youth Conference, scheduled...

As someone who has worked for Priests for Life, I have a perspective of the current situation that few people enjoy. Currently, there are reports of IRS problems with Priests for Life as well as debt problems with this non-profit organization. The current crisis has been brought to a climax by a recent letter issued by Bishop Zurek of Amarillo to all bishops of the USCCB asking them [and their flocks] not to contribute to Priests for Life. Additionally, Bishop Zurek has recalled Father Frank Pavone to only work inside the Diocese of Amarillo -- with no travel outside the...

In a 1,883-word plea for donations, the Rev. Frank Pavone warns of “heralds of the culture of death who seek to ... use my current situation to mislead people into thinking that they are wasting their precious pro-life dollars by entrusting them to Priests for Life.” The anti- abortion charity based in Staten Island, N.Y., over the last decade has channeled more than $1.4 million to its nonprofit affiliates, spent $2.4 million on a ministry that soon went defunct and shelled out more than $250,000 in loans to an employee and a check to an entity in Europe. Over the...

... Father Pavone’s bishop, Patrick Zurek of the Diocese of Amarillo, Texas, has issued an administrative decree “suspend[ing] Father Frank A. Pavone from public ministry outside the Diocese of Amarillo.” In a letter dated September 9, which he sent to the entire American episcopate to justify his decision in the court of public opinion, Zurek reveals his real intention: to destroy Father Pavone’s reputation and sink Priests for Life. Professing a desire to “strengthen Father Pavone’s sense of communicatio sacramentalis,” Zurek combines vicious public insults with outright calumny.... Bishop Zurek’s power play against Father Pavone is a prime example of...

Many, many people were fervently praying for a good outcome to yesterday’s meeting between Fr. Pavone, who had expressed his desire to meet with his superior in Amarillo, and Bp. Zurek, who last week offered a personal meeting to Pavone with ample notice. Those petitions were dashed, however, when (to what I think must have been the universal surprise of observers) Pavone simply failed to appear. Now, a “private meeting” between a bishop and one of his priests “to discuss his spiritual progress” poses (for reasons I can elaborate, if useful) zero canonical risk to a priest in disciplinary contention...

Since this is a PDF, the link is given here: http://www.amarillodiocese.org/pictures/Bishop/Public-Statement-regarding-Fr.jpg There will be a meeting on October 13, 2011 between Bishop Zurek and Father Pavone about spiritual issues. Bishop Zurek, in the statement, is asking for prayer for a fruitful dialogue between himself and Father Pavone.

As many of you probably know, our friend Father Pavone has been literally exiled by his bishop and barred from doing the pro-life work God clearly put him here to do.

More than three years ago, readers on this site received fair warning that Father Frank Pavone was cruising toward a showdown with officials in the Diocese of Amarillo. Read the comment by Diogenes from August 2008, and you will find the simmering conflict neatly summarized, many months before it boiled over into full public view. Diogenes concluded his analysis this way: The question isn't whether or not the Church will support pro-life work. The question is whether priests and religious, when they engage in pro-life work, remain subject to ecclesiastical discipline. The answer, by the way, is Yes. You can...

September 19, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Whether it’s an election year or not, I see to it that Priests for Life echoes loud and clear the duty of citizens to inform themselves about where the candidates stand on the issues. This evaluation starts, of course, with where they stand on violence against human beings, because if public servants cannot tell the difference between serving the public and killing the public, they don’t belong in public office. What if a candidate supported terrorism? Would citizens say, “Well, I disagree with you on terrorism,  but what’s your health care plan? Maybe we can...

Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, has said that if his bishop does not allow him to return to full-time pro-life work, he will consider being incardinated in a different diocese or founding a religious order to continue his pro-life ministry. The well-known pro-life priest also said that he had been actively talking with Bishop Patrick J. Zurek of Amarillo, Texas for months about spending more time in the diocese before the bishop forbid him from ministry outside of the diocese. In an interview with CNA, Fr. Pavone said that he arrived in Amarillo on Sept. 13,...

Note: This document will be updated with new information about Fr. Pavone’s situation as it becomes available. It is arranged in chronological order from newest to oldest. 9/14 - On his blog - In the Light of the Law - famed canonist Ed Peters comments on the Bishop Zurek letter noting that the Bishop “should not have used the term ‘suspend’ in regard to Pavone, for ‘suspension’ is a canonical penalty for crime (c. 1333), and Pavone has not been accused of any crime.” He adds however that the Bishop “is within his authority to recall Pavone to Amarillo...