The Pope expels a US priest from the Church and the clash with the conservatives worsens

In the North American Church, the order of the day is clashes between conservatives and progressivesthat closely relate important issues such as abortion, gays and other controversial issues to the political battle between Republicans and Democrats.

By final decision of Pope Francis, the Vatican kicked out of the churchreducing him to the lay state and without the possibility of appeal, to one of the most famous American priests, Father Frank Pavone.

Leader of the Society of Priests for Life, Pavone was considered “guilty of blasphemous communications on social media and persistent disobedience to his diocesan bishop,” of Amarillo, Texas, Monsignor Patrick Zurek, said the Vatican Clergy Department.

In the communication from Monsignor Christophe Pierre, Apostolic Nuncio of the Holy See in the USA, it is clarified that there is no “possibility of appeal”. The Vatican document does not mention the episodes for which Pavone is accused.

“I have been persecuted by the church for decades. This is nothing new to me,” replied Father Pavone. “He just doesn’t like what I do for the kids,” he added.

“I’m waiting to be told what mistakes I’ve made to deserve such a measure,” said the ultra-conservative priest. He explained that since he can’t appeal, he has to “wait for the next pontificate” to ask for his reinstatement to the Church as a priest.

Religious adviser to Donald Trump

An aggravating problem with Pavone is his openly republican political stance. He was former President Donald Trump’s religious adviser and defended the toughest positions against abortion and other issues that deeply divide the American Catholic electorate.

Last year he wrote harsh criticism “of that damned loser (Joe) Biden”, the president of the United States and “to his morally corrupt, America-hating, God-hating Democratic party.”

The adventures of Father Peacock caused various scandals. In election year 2016, the president of the Pro-Life Priests Association placed an aborted fetus on an altar and posted it as a video on social media. There he spoke very badly of the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump’s defeated rival.

Pavone says and repeats that Trump, who is running for re-election as president, “is the greatest leader we have ever had”. In a photo posted to Twitter, he was shown hugging Trump while wearing a partisan hat.

A lawsuit has been growing in the Vatican clergy department for years with all the protests of Bishop Zurek over the disobedience of one of the priests of his diocese, precisely Father Pavone.

The crack in the Church

In the powerful North American Church, with over 83 million faithful in disagreement between conservatives and progressives, Pavone’s campaigns have opened wide gaps.

Bishop Joseph Strickland of the diocese of Tyler, a staunch critic of Pope Francis, protested against Pavone’s removal order.

“The blasphemy is that this holy priest is canceled, while a bad president (referring to Biden) promotes the denial of the truth and the murder of the unborn. Vatican officials promote immorality and denial of the deposit of faith, while many priests promote gender confusion, devastating many lives.”

The Pope’s decision to expel Father Pavone from the Church renews the political clashes within Catholicism North American. The bishop of San Angelo, Texas, Monsignor Michael Pfeiffer, asked the Bishops’ Conference to focus on the fight “against the pro-abortion measures of our president (Biden), in particular with regard to infanticide.

Biden has never sponsored infanticide but the version circulates intensely and campaigns are renewed to deepen the fracture that already exists in the American Catholic electorate.

Debates are renewed among the hundreds of bishops of the North American Bishops’ Conference despite the fact that the Pope has said several times that President Joe Biden is a good Catholic and can receive the sacraments.

Biden is personally against abortion but argues that as president he cannot oppose a law passed by Congress.

Cardinal Joseph Tobin, archbishop of Detroit, said more than a year and a half ago that Catholics can “vote in conscience for Biden.” And he added that “neither Republicans nor Democrats can present themselves as representatives of the Catholic tradition”.

The current Pope, but also his predecessors, such as Benedict XVI, John Paul II and Paul VI, have always maintained that the importance of the act of discernment of Catholic electors must be able to develop with total freedom.

America, the monthly of the US Jesuits, wonders if the 40 million Catholics registered in the Democratic Party are destined to face the flames of hell. “Certainly not according to canon law or the Bishops’ Conference, which has decided not to side with either the Republicans or the Democrats”.

President Biden confirmed a few days ago the law approved by the US Congress that protects same-sex couples. But the press reflected the “long faces” of many Catholic circles.

The reformist options of Francis’ pontificate opened a deep breach with the conservative sectors. Undoubtedly the most powerful wing of resistance to the current papacy remains in the United States, so much so that the archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Nolan, is considered the leader of critics of Jorge Bergoglio’s pontificate.

The data emerging from some studies does not help to make clear judgments on the guidelines. The Center for Applied Research at Georgetown University in Washington, a bulwark of Jesuit thought in the US, notes that 52% of Catholics support the priesthood of women and 62% believe that priests should bless same-sex couples, while only 38% agree opposes euthanasia or assisted suicide.

But another study by the Austin Institute offers a different x-ray of the North American Catholic world. He notes, for example, that there is growing concern about the direction Pope Francis gives to the Church. 49.8% disapprove of this orientation. In seminaries, the share of future priests with a conservative orientation is growing.

Father Frank Pavone was removed from the priesthood on December 9 “without the possibility of appeal”. His downgrading to secular status came a month after the US bishops’ conference announced it would “redouble his efforts to end abortion.” At this meeting, new leaders were elected who were supportive of the more conservative lines of the elite hierarchies.

And it is known that Father Pavone has decided to give a new impetus to the Society of Priests for Life, in response to the sanctions. “I continue to be a Catholic priest who exercises his ministry in communion with the Catholic Church,” he said. But we will have to wait for the next Pope.

Vatican correspondent

B. C