Story Update: On Sept. 15, Msgr. Harold Waldow, vicar of clergy and moderator of the Curia for the Amarillo, Texas, Diocese, issued a clarification about the matter in a letter: “As the vicar of clergy for the Diocese of Amarillo and the moderator of the Curia, I want to publically state that Rev. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life is a priest in good standing with the Roman Catholic Church. He has all the faculties for ministry that every priest of our diocese has in and for the Diocese of Amarillo. I would also like to clarify a point that because there is a dispute about the auditing process and the complete audit for all the entities of Priests for Life, Rachel's Vineyard, and the Missionaries of the Gospel of Life does not mean that Father Pavone is being charged with any malfeasance or being accused of any wrongdoing with the financial matters of Priests for Life."
The Register's original Sept. 25 issue story continues below.
AMARILLO, Texas — Father Frank Pavone, director of Priests for Life, was recalled to his home diocese in a dramatic action with ramifications for his international pro-life apostolate.
In a letter circulated to U.S. cardinals and bishops and released Sept. 13, Bishop Patrick Zurek of Amarillo, Texas, expressed alarm about Father Pavone’s refusal to provide full disclosure of his organization’s financial records and to “show appropriate obedience to his bishop.” He asked that other bishops advise their faithful to consider withholding donations until the issue is settled.
The order took effect the same day, and Father Pavone was expected to return to Amarillo that evening. He will be prohibited from leaving the diocese for an unspecified period and has been directed to use this interim as an opportunity for “prayer and reflection.”
Father Pavone wrote a letter to the U.S. bishops, dated Sept. 12, that did not explicitly address every charge raised in Bishop Zurek’s letter, but confirmed that he was “utilizing appropriate recourse to Rome for those aspects of the situation that cannot be resolved locally.”
“Please be assured at the outset that I am committed to full compliance with my bishop’s requests and directives and have already indicated the same to him — prior to his sending his letter to all the bishops of the U.S.,” wrote Father Pavone, who noted that “Bishop Zurek is my ordinary, but he is not the bishop of Priests for Life.”
In his letter, Father Pavone suggested that his apostolate had considerable backing in the Church and would overcome any obstacles posed by Bishop Zurek’s action.
Priests for Life is affiliated with a number of pro-life ministries, including Rachel’s Vineyard, the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, African-American Outreach, Deacons for Life, and Seminarians for Life.
For many years, Father Pavone, 52, has also provided programming for EWTN; the Register is a service of the network. He had just completed taping at the network before traveling to Amarillo.
Michael Warsaw, CEO of EWTN and publisher of the Register, confirmed that the network was aware of Bishop Zurek’s decision to recall Father Pavone and was awaiting clarification of the issues.
“EWTN is in ongoing conversations with both the Diocese of Amarillo and Father Pavone to clarify the exact nature of the restrictions and their potential impact on EWTN’s ability to continue to air programming featuring Father Frank. While these discussions are continuing, the network encourages our EWTN family to keep this matter in your prayers,” said Warsaw.
Bishop Zurek was not available for comment, and all media inquiries were referred to Msgr. Harold Waldow, who referenced a Catholic News Service wire story posted on the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Msgr. Waldow, on Sept. 13, confirmed that Father Pavone was on his way to Amarillo.
Presented All Documents
Bishop Zurek, in his letter, said his action “underscored his concerns about the stewardship of the finances of the Priests for Life (PFL) organization,” describing it as a “lucrative” business that “provides Father Pavone with financial independence from all legitimate ecclesiastical oversight.”
Bishop Zurek suggested there “have been persistent questions and concerns by clergy and laity regarding the transactions of millions of dollars of donations to the PFL from whom the donors have a rightful expectation that the moneys are being used prudently.”
He noted that these concerns were not new and had “persisted with no clear and adequate answers since the time when Father Pavone was under two previous bishop ordinaries” — Father Pavone was ordained as a priest of the Archdiocese of New York by Cardinal John O’Connor in 1988. He also served under Cardinal O’Connor’s successor, Cardinal Edward Egan, but was incardinated into the Diocese of Amarillo in 2005 at the invitation of Bishop Zurek’s predecessor, Bishop John Yanta.
Kate Monaghan, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of New York, referred all inquiries to the Diocese of Amarillo.
Bishop Zurek charged that Father Pavone “has consistently refused to subject the PFL to a transparent and complete auditing of all expenditures.”
“I have reasons to be alarmed at the potential financial scandal that might arise if it were the result of my failure to correct Father Pavone’s incorrigible defiance to my legitimate authority as his bishop,” he wrote in a statement that employed unusually strong language.
In an interview with the Register Sept. 13, Father Pavone said that Priests for Life had repeatedly provided Bishop Zurek a full accounting of the nonprofit’s financial records and that the dispute arose, in part, from a larger question: whether it was possible for a diocesan priest to pursue a “calling within in a calling — a full-time pro-life apostolate.”
“The bottom line is: We sent him every financial document he has asked for. We answered all his questions, and we made our financial team available to his financial team,” said Father Pavone, who confirmed that Priests for Life raised between $10 million and $11 million in 2010.
An additional letter, issued by Father David Deibel, chief canonist for Priests for Life, noted that the nonprofit had undergone annual audits for the past decade and that Priests for Life had “submitted over 40 separate financial and management documents to the bishop of Amarillo (Bishop John Yanta as well as Bishop Zurek). These included all annual audits from 2005 through 2010. ... These submissions have never been acknowledged.”
Characterizing Bishop Zurek’s letter as “an outright and unjustified attack on the work of Priests for Life as a whole, which is much more grave than his real or imagined difficulty with Father Pavone,” Father Deibel reported that “we have formally petitioned Bishop Zurek to rescind his directive.”
He noted that “Bishop Zurek has threatened in writing to withdraw Father Pavone permanently from pro-life ministry if he were to exercise his canonical rights to hierarchical recourse. As an association that has always sought to be faithful to the Church and its teaching, this is the only forum left to us within the Church.”
The deeper issue was his ability to continue working in his chosen apostolate, and he expressed hope that he might be able to return to the New York Archdiocese, where the headquarters for Priests for Life is located.
“Bishop Zurek is quite aware that my heart is in pro-life work; it is a commitment I made to God. A spiritual father is supposed to affirm the work of his priest. I told him, ‘If you don’t see yourself able to give me permission to do this work, I understand,’” said Father Pavone in the Register interview.
“I do not intend to stay in Amarillo. I am in consultation regarding the next step, but don’t want to be hopping around from diocese to diocese. Still, it’s inconceivable that in the Roman Catholic Church there is no place for a priest to commit himself full time to pro-life ministry.”
Joan Frawley Desmond is based in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
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What the h—- is going on with the church? one minute your guilty, next your not.I know of a preist in delaware who is guilty of many imorale things and even that 72 plus people complained about him, he still walks the earth wearing a collar and hideing behind a cross like a serpent in a tree. Be aware of tasting the apple!!!!!
@Guy - “one minute your guilty, next your not”
I don’t see that the update conflicts with the original press release from Bishop Zurek. Granted, the first announcement was a bit vague; however, the bigger problem was that many of the reports published on the Internet went for sensationalistic headlines that were very misleading, even when the content below it was more-or-less accurate.
@drwho13 - I agree. It seems there are many people who use any opportunity to criticize the hierarchy.
The reasons Bishop Zurek gave in his letter to his brother bishops were neither specific nor clear yet plenty of text was used for name-calling and insinuating his priest and his work are not on the up and up. He even went so far as to ask his brother bishops to tell the people in their diocese not to donate anymore to Priests for Life. Yet he isn’t even specific about what he was planning to do to resolve this other than that he has recalled Fr. Pavone.
Fr. Pavone, in his public statement, says he has been transparent with the financials of Priests for Life and has been obedient, along with a few specific statements of what he plans to do or was already doing to resolve the matter.
I will keep Father Pavone and Bishop Zurek in my prayers.
As a military family in the 80’s and `90’s, we moved frequently and witnessed numerous irregularities in the Mass from city to city. But back then the bishops seemed to turn a blind eye to what was going on in their parishes. They didn’t want to hear about it. We witnessed guitars, tambourines, keyboards, drums, casual Sunday (in Florida, an influential woman received the Sacred Eucharist in a sheer lace jacket covering her skimpy bathing suit with flip-flops on her feet), bird feeders outside clear, plate glass windows, and even a limestone fountain bubbling forth with Holy Water. The liberals were running amok in the Church. Sunday had become a social event for the “In Crowd”. But then a few Hell and damnation priests, like Father Corapi and Father Pavone, sneaked out from behind the swanky parishioner’s well-guarded walls and began preaching the truth. And I believe reality bothered the conscience of the new age, pro-choice Catholics. So, factions of the “I-want-it-my-way” Catholics decided that blunt, candid priests must be removed from the game. I believe they still have the bishop’s ear.
The only thing more inept that the Obama administration is the collective administration of the Catholic Bishops in the USA.
We should ask for the intercession of St. Padre Pio this week for a truthful ending to this misunderstanding.
Looks ta’ me like this can be a political issue. Fr. Pavone is a great advocate for the innocent unborn. He say’s it like it is. Zurek happened to make this go public and then left to Rio de Janeiro like it this mess had nothing to do with him. How convenient for this Bishop stating his diocese needs money. Is he wantingto cash in on this poor priest?
In an article, Alberto Cutie, the priest who left the Church to marry and to become a minister in the Episcopal community, said about Bishop Zurek: “His bishop in Amarillo is certainly much more progressive than he (Fr Pavone) is” (link below). If this is true, there may be another reason, apart from the financial, why Fr Pavone has been suspended.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/father-alberto-cutie/missing-gone-or-just-elim_b_968201.html
It would probably be best for all concerned if they remained silent until they were able to sit down and speak the truth to each other, and then, meet the press and explain the situation.
I do not think running from one diocese to another will solve the problem if there be one in the area of finances.
It would also be nice if Bishops took the same concern and discipline toward Catholic politicians who speak out against the Church in their votes in Congress. . .I hope and pray the matter can be resolved quickly as the more important aspect of it all is for Bishops to be Shepherds within their Diocese; and for priests to lead people to God through the Sacramental Life of the Church.
Father Joseph LeBlanc
Grand Couteau, Louisiana
As Fr. Pavone speaks now of seeking another diocese in which to be incardinated, or the possibility of starting a new religious order, I remain amazed that the men who so preach obedience to authority (Fr. Corapi, Fr. Pavone, etc.) so seem to chafe against it. I give credit to Fr. Pavone for following his Bishop’s order to return home, but after his issues with Archbishop Egan and now Bishop Zurek, as he seeks to move from one diocese to another, one has to wonder. It appears for many of those who speak of obedience, that only really applies when they are in agreement with the orders being issued.
How can you compare Mr. Corapi and Fr. Pavone? Corapi is a lecherous, drug-addicted, money-obsessed millionaire who had to scrounge around desperately to get an order to accept him, and joined one in which he quickly became close buddies with the Superior, thus being permitted every sort of bizarre and unorthodox behavior including in the areas of money and sex. Corapi never should have been ordained, he was unfit for the priesthood, and it was a shrewd business decision for him. He had a con game, playing up his “conversion”, that fooled EWTN viewers and simple people like that because all he did was basically read the catechism and throw in a few jokes. Who could disagree? He was 100% orthodox, that was his trick, it was never sincere! No one knew about the prostitute housed in his estate in Wyoming. Corapi has never been worthy of the word ‘priest’ and believe me you don’t even know the half of it.
Fr. Pavone is a good, some would say great, man, who even his own bishop had to retract the original letter because the accusations were so blatantly negative. That letter was not a chastisement but a smear campaign sent to every bishop in the US and ordering Fr. Pavone home hardly before he could pack a suitcase. Imagine: the man is in the prime of his life, at the peak of a brilliant career that has saved countless lives and educated millions of people. His own bishop states Fr. Pavone is accused of NO wrongdoing, is NOT suspended, merely recalled. He WAS TOTALLY OBEDIENT. He came to Amarillo almost faster than a flight could be arranged, not having any idea WHY! And his “Father in Faith” off in Rio on vacation. You can imagine the first few statements of Fr. Pavone would be from a stunned, confused, and very worried frame of mind. But he never said anything disobedient or even defiant, just trying to clarify. And too bad we can’t start uncovering dirt, because there’s much more on Bishop Zurek than Fr. Pavone.
The bishop’s two week departure from the diocese is rather tacky, to say the least. Shame on him! He shoud know better. I always thought a priest was ordained for service to his diocese. Anything else, over and above, is only with the express knowledge and approval of the Ordinary. However, sadly too many of our bishops are almost totally out of touch with reality, the needs of their diocese, and their clergy, etc. Our bishops in this country have become epsicopal-politicans. If we had to vote for them on an annual basis, many of them would/shoud be out of a job!
Bishop Zurek should examine his conscience in regards to Fr. Pavone. Fr. Pavone does so much good work for humanity in his fight against abortion and it appears to me that the bishop is just jealous that one of his priests is more popular than he is. Sounds like sour grapes to me.
God Bless you, Fr. Pavone!
My family watches EWTN daily and are especially blessed to have heard many of your homilies there. Your ministry is essential and has saved countless lives and no doubt, souls.
You are always in our prayers!
Blessed John Paul II, please pray for all of us!
Jim Hooper
O’Fallon, IL
If there needs to be an audit, then so be it. But I will never understand why the Bishop has to clean the laundry in the press. The audit can be done, quickly and prudently without marginalizing Fr. Pavone. The other thing that gets me worked up is that the Bishops tend to have a heavy hand, but not with real sinners. Case in point are our catholic legislators who vote against the teachings of the church knowing full well that they potentially they can cause harm to its citizens. Fr. Pavone has done more in his short life than most bishops have done in their entire lives put together. Fr. Pavone is a saint. Period.
Looks to me like some folks are digging deep for a chance at some juicy gossip. Here’s a lil’ biblical excerpt on just that:“Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people: neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbour: I am the Lord. Leviticus 19:16 “The words of a talebearer are as wounds” Proverbs 26:22 “He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends.” Proverbs 17:9 “Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out; so where there is no talebearer, the strife ceaseth.” Proverbs 26:20 Looks like Bishop Zurek dug up some nasty stink from the very cesspool he wanted to mix Fr. Pavone in. Don’t think so Bishop Zurek!!! How could you mess with the integrity of a good Catholic priest along with the Priests for Life organization knowing they are the #1 in the Nation on saving babies and their parents from the abortion massacre? Man- I hope you are aware you have the BLOOD of babies on your hands right now. There definately is a loose screw in this Bishop’s brain. For goodness sakes!!!! FREEFRFRANK.COM
My comment was not a comparison between Fr. Corapi and Fr. Pavone. The truth of what went on at Fr. Corapi’s private estate in Wyoming God alone knows. I only mentioned Fr. Corapi because of his public position on sin. If his fire and brimstone sermons were a personal sham, he will answer for them on Judgment Day, but his straightforward sermons may have saved a soul or two. Yet Fr. Pfleger (the priest who flew the U.S. flag upside down & other offensive things) was asked to remain by Cardinal Francis George. So, I guess what matters is the politically correctness of your bishop or cardinal. As a child in the early `60’s, I left Sunday Mass after listening to the priest’s no-nonsense sermons with an inward vow to be a better Catholic. Nonetheless, the following Saturday evening I inevitably ended up in that nail-biting line for confession. The Church is wondering why confessions are down. Could it be that priests are afraid to make parishioners feel guilty?
Sad times we are living in…can it be that someone behind the scenes is trying to distroy our church??? that is all I have to say…
We live in a time where secular progressives are influencing too many of our people, moving them toward actions antithetical to Catholic Church teachings. We are in trying times with an administration that is attempting to destroy our traditional American government with a Marxist/socialist government that replaces “God” with the “State”. In such times where many people are being mislead by slick articulate people who mislead the public by twisting the meaning of words, we need a strong and guiding voice in the Church. Two priests that have done so (Fr Corapi and Fr. Pavone) have found themselves in conflict with their bishops. Both cases, while we read of and many times are told of these priest’s transgressions, there is no clear explanation of what the issue is and why the Bishop has taken that action. This is unsatisfactory and unprofessional - it hurts the church. In both cases, the priest/misistry is raising large amounts of money of which, apparently, none is going into the Bishop’s coffers. Why are we reading of these situations when there is no explanation of any wrong doing. In Fr Pavone’s case, until and unless an accounting error or other transgression has been found, this should not have become a public and reported issue. We need to support our Bishops and I don’t envy their challenges but I also don’t like to see priests that are providing a real and significant contribution being vilified in public without apparent basis. Bishops don’t want to publicly report on which of their universities teach according to the magisterium so what is the problem here? If Fr Pavone reports to a different Bishp on PFL issues than for other issues then the two bishops need to clear up the dual administrative lines.
God Bless Father Pavone and all the little infants he has saved from the abortionists’ knife, and all of the women, who were sold the lie, yet are enabled to recover their lives through the Rachel’s Vineyard Ministry. I fast every Friday for Pro-life and Priest’s for Life ministries, and pray one of my rosaries a day, also for pro-life success. I think the attack on John Corapi was unfair and unsubstantiated. The woman who accused Father Corapi of wrong-doing was herself unstable and I do not understand why they would have given any credence to her charges. John Corapi is now taking on the abortion industry head on, and I applaud his courageous efforts on behalf of the unborn children who may have their lives saved, as a result of Fr. Corapi’s unflagging zeal for the truth. You are a priest forever as a result of the Sacrament of Holy Orders as it leaves an indelible mark on your soul. God bless and the Lord be with you all.
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