Kamala Harris, Knights of Columbus and Anti-Catholicism

Absent probing and honest media interviews, no one knows whether Democratic Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris still stands by her anti-Catholic rhetoric of 2020.

August 28, 2024 by Fr Gordon MacRae

When I was 18 years old and a newly returned Catholic in 1971, I was invited by my friend, Father Anthony Nuccio, to membership in the Knights of Columbus where Father Tony served as chaplain. Along with the Civil Rights movement, the Knights were largely responsible for fostering in me a sense of Catholic community, service, and a vocation to priesthood. I was, and remain, a member of Valladolid Council #70 on the North Shore of Massachussetts. At the time I entered religious life and seminary in 1974, the Knights of Columbus bestowed on me an honorary lifetime membership. Time and distance diminished my active presence somewhat, but today I consider the Knights of Columbus to be a powerful influence on my life and vocation.

For those unfamiliar, the Knights of Columbus is an international fraternal organization of more than 2 million Roman Catholic laymen. The organization was founded in 1882 by Father Michael J. McGivney to promote ideals of charity, community, fraternity, and patriotism among first and second generation Catholic immigrants. Father McGivney’s cause for canonization was opened in 1997. Pope Benedict XVI declared him Venerable in 2008 and Pope Francis beatified him on May 31, 2020.

More than 10,000 local councils of the Knights of Columbus are presently active throughout the United States, Canada, the Philippines and the Caribbean where the Knights conduct and sponsor volunteer programs for Roman Catholics in service to the communities in which they live. The organization also conducts extensive Catholic education and scholarship programs, promotes Catholic identity, and assists in the support of seminarians and Catholic schools. Our friend, Pornchai Maximilian Moontri cites Knights of Columbus-sponsored free correspondence courses in Catholic and Biblical Studies as pivotal factors in his 2010 Divine Mercy Catholic conversion.

So, as you can imagine, Pornchai and I both reacted with umbrage to the misinformed and slanderous remarks of Kamala Harris and other Democratic politicians while interviewing a judicial nominee in 2020 who happened to be a faithful Catholic and a member of the Knights of Columbus. There are over 73 million Catholics in the United States. That is 73 million potential votes that Ms. Harris does not deserve unless she recants or explains her views on Catholicism and those who practice it.

For the first time in my adult life, I am afraid for America. And not only for America. I fear for all of Western Culture as well. I feel little beyond dismal foreboding for the slide toward democratic socialism into which our democracy is in rapid descent. We cannot escape the truth of it. What was, in 2020, considered the “radical Left” in politics is now merely the Left. There is no irony or subtlety at all in what I am about to write. Our only hope is to halt this course and reclaim it.

This may seem a peculiar point of view from someone for whom democracy and its assurance of justice remains a dismal failure. The imprisoned place from where I write enjoys no distractions of the world in which you read these pages. I cannot escape into Netflix or some local bar to medicate my anxiety. I cannot escape at all. Just using that word in a sentence is risky.

My view of the outside world is limited to raw and sometimes hopeless coverage presented in the 24-hour news cycles. There is no place else to go. You may have heard similar words back in 2020 from Maximo Alvarez, a Cuban-American who fled to the United States forty-four years ago. He fled socialist Cuba for America because his father convinced him that there was no place else to go.

I may be the only person I know who sat through news coverage of both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions this year. I did so for the same reason that Maximo Alvarez articulated with such courage and clarity at the RNC in 2020 — because we are both afraid for America. We both know that there is no place else to go. I have not been so afraid for my country and culture since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 when I was nine years old at the brink of nuclear war. Those of a certain age may remember the drills as grade school children across America were told to hide under their classroom desks with all the shades drawn. The anxiety and fear of a possible nuclear attack from the Cuban Missile Crisis left an impact on the psyche of every child.

When Russia embraced socialism following a cultural revolution, it became the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It malignantly spread its tentacles in a quest for global dominance. That included the establishment of a socialist state in Cuba followed in 1962 by the construction of a battery of nuclear missiles aimed at the United States. For anyone who listened to Maximo Alvarez at the RNC in 2020, his revulsion and fear of the growing socialism in America was gripping.

Imagine how he felt when Senator Bernie Sanders referred to Fidel Castro as a humanitarian. Imagine the chill in his spine when Senator Tim Scott warned of the forces in America seeking an American cultural revolution and the establishment of the United Socialist States of America. Senator Scott was not referring to anarchists on the margins of American culture. He was referring to the presidential and vice presidential nominees on the Democratic ballot at that time. Now, history repeats.

Are Faithful Catholics a Threat to Democracy?

Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights heads this nation’s largest advocacy group in defense of Religious Liberty. His work was the subject of our post, “Cultural Meltdown: Prophetic Wisdom for a Troubled Age.” Most recently, Dr. Donohue and the Catholic League have demanded from the U.S. Department of Justice an investigation and explanation for recent documents launched by the FBI to investigate Traditioned-minded Catholics who are merely attempting to exercise their Faith.

Believe it or not, I am not writing a political post. As a lifelong Democrat, now an Independent, I do not oppose any political party. But my conscience requires me to oppose an ideology that is not only a threat to democracy, but a threat to Religious Freedom and my fundamental right to practice and adhere to my Faith.

In late 2018, as then-Senator Kamala Harris was preparing a presidential run, she sat on the Senate Judiciary Committee where she screened federal judicial nominees put forward by then-President Donald Trump. Senator Harris asked a nominee about his Catholic faith, noting that he had been a member of the Knights of Columbus for over two decades. Her questions alluded to the K of C being some sort of politically suspect group. She demanded to know if his membership in such an “all male anti-choice organization” would cloud his judicial decisions. She referred to the Knights as an “extremist” group.

“Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when you joined the organization?,” Senator Harris asked. The judicial nominee, Brian Buescher, was blindsided. It only got worse. Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii picked up on the line of questioning. “Do you intend to end your membership in this organization to avoid any appearance of bias?” The appearance of bias was already front and center, but it wasn’t on the part of the judicial nominee who was eventually confirmed. On January 5, 2019, I wrote this response to the story posted at The Wall Street Journal:

“The big question here is not what judicial nominee Brian Buescher believes, but whether Senators Kamala Harris and Mazie Hirono believe in anything at all that is worthy of belief. And the bigger question is whether such overt anti-Catholic suspicions render them unfit for public office. At best, they both need a refresher course in remedial Constitutional law. Their disregard for the Constitutional provision against any religious test for judicial confirmation is a serious flaw in their readiness to represent their constituents…”

What made this biased grilling of a Catholic nominee by Kamala Harris far more reprehensible was its déjà vu factor. Just six months earlier, the Judiciary Chair, Senator Dianne Feinstein, became the subject of public ridicule for openly applying the same unconstitutional religious test to President Trump’s nominee, Notre Dame Law Professor Amy Coney Barrett. Looking over her work as a law professor at a Catholic university, Senator Feinstein referred to her faith as a “cult” and said, “the dogma speaks loudly in you.” There was hell to pay.

But not so when Senators Harris and Hirona repeated the tactic just six months later. With the exception of Bill Donohue’s vigilant voice at the Catholic League, little was said to call attention to the newest anti-Catholic bias of Kamala Harris. When this bias was unmasked, Kamala Harris had defenders who argued that she could not be anti-Catholic because she was teamed up with Joe Biden “who carries a rosary everyplace he goes.” True. He carried it while promoting abortion without restrictions at every stage of development. He carried it while withdrawing his forty years of support for the Hyde Amendment that restricted taxpayer funds for the coverage of abortions.

He carried it when he vowed from his campaign headquarters to roll back religious exemptions in contraception coverage extended by the Supreme Court to the Little Sisters of the Poor. Mr. Biden responded to the Supreme Court decisions in favor of protecting Religious Liberty for the nuns and other conscientious objectors by restoring the mandate that both the nuns and the Supreme Court objected to. This would hit the Sisters with ruinous fines and a deeply felt conflict of conscience. The rosary in his pocket notwithstanding, Joe Biden’s threats to Religious Liberty were evidence of how much he was led and misled by the Left wing of his party, a position for which Kamala Harris has taken the reins and has now made it the mainstream of that party.

In just the six months between the anti-Catholic questioning of Notre Dame’s Amy Coney Barrett and that of judicial nominee Brian Buescher, a lot had changed. One distinctive change was the Senate Democrats’ assault on the character of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a devout Catholic.

Senator Kamala Harris reprised her role as a career prosecutor by grilling Brett Kavanaugh mercilessly on entirely uncorroborated rumors of drunkenness and sexual escapades in his high school years — rumors that not a single person could confirm.

It has also been lost in most of the news media coverage that before becoming the nominee for vice president on the Democratic ticket, Kamala Harris went on record to state that she also believes the sexual allegations against Joe Biden brought forward by Tara Reade in 2020. This is among the tough questions that most in our now-partisan news media will not ask.

Credits: Left, Addie Mena/Catholic News Agency; Right, Associated Press

Anesthesia for the Catholic Conscience

After publication of a controversial post, “Joe Biden, Cardinal McCarrick and the Betrayal of Life,” a priest whom I have known for some years “unsubscribed” from this blog in 2020. His reasoning was that any criticism of Joe Biden on moral grounds amounted to a tacit endorsement of President Trump. I do not endorse President Trump. What I endorse — and so should we all — is the lawful election that put him in office in 2016. I am among the many Americans who resent the notion that this “Basket of Deplorables” who cast their votes were too ignorant to be entrusted with the finer points of democracy.

From the moment the election results were announced in November, 2016, a relentless campaign was launched to nullify this lawful election by discrediting the elected President through any means possible. Most shameful of all for democracy, much of the news media abandoned its mission to report honestly on that partisan cause. One result of that betrayal was evident at The New York Times when young, progressive reporters in the news room revolted and brought about the resignation of a respected editor because he allowed “the opposition” to write an op-ed. “The opposition” in that case was the highly regarded Republican Senator Josh Hawley.

When New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan praised President Trump’s emphasis on Religious Liberty in a FOX News interview, two liberal groups of Catholic nuns sent letters of protest to the Cardinal asking him to retract his remarks. They cited Mr. Trump’s positions on climate change and capital punishment as evidence that he cannot be considered “pro-life.” The National Catholic Reporter published an editorial using the same reasoning.

In the Catholic conscience, some real moral gymnastics are required to measure a candidate’s concept of the value of life solely by a position on the death penalty. It entirely overlooks the moral apocalypse that resulted in the execution of 73 million human lives terminated in the womb at every level of development right up to birth. The awakening of the Catholic conscience to this is evident in my post, “The Last Full Measure of Devotion: Civil Rights and the Right to Life”

I am in sympathy with “Black Lives Matter” but there is much hypocrisy. African Americans constitute 12.5 percent of the U.S. population, but 30 percent of U.S. abortions. That is by design and not merely a quirk of sociology. Planned Parenthood was founded by Margaret Sanger for the purpose of controlling the growth of the African American population. That fact is finally exposed in the public square. As monuments to historical figures are toppled across the land, no one has yet suggested that Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi surrender their Margaret Sanger awards for their support of “reproductive rights.”

Whatever Kamala Harris believes about the morality of unlimited abortion on demand, she is falling lockstep in line with the platform of her party. In 2020, Kristin Day, executive director of Democrats for Life of America, reported that a third of Democrats considered themselves to be pro-life, but “top Democrats have gone out of their way to make it clear that we are no longer welcome in the party.” The DNC ignored the group’s request to testify before its platform committee. A major percentage of these pro-life Democrats are people of faith, Ms Day said, “but the much-hyped group, ‘Believers for Biden’ is a flop. It had only 26 followers on Facebook a week after being created” in 2020. One year later, Vice President Kamala Harris addressed the platform stating, “The Declaration of Independence guarantees to every American the right to liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” By single-handedly eliminating the most basic of all human rights, the right to life, Kamala Harris set the Democrat Party on a road to hedonism.

As Joe Biden vowed to bankrupt the Little Sisters of the Poor with never-ending legislation and litigation, Kamala Harris did the same during her tenure as California Attorney General. In 2014, the Catholic Daughters of Charity Health System had six hospitals that were operating at an annual loss that could not be sustained. Prime Healthcare made a bid to assume their $300 million liability for worker pensions, but the United Healthcare Workers’ union opposed the deal.

Kamala Harris attached dozens of previously unheard of conditions to the deal such as requiring the Catholic hospitals to provide 24-hour nursing, surgery, anesthesia, radiology and pharmaceutical services for five years. This crippled the deal.

Prime Health sued Kamala Harris for violating its due process rights. The Catholic Daughters executives said that Ms. Harris blocked the deal at the behest of the union with “financially crippling conditions.” The lawsuit alleged that in return the union pledged $25 million in political financial support for Ms. Harris. The lawsuit ended in 2017 when a federal judge ruled that as Attorney General, Ms. Harris had “qualified immunity” from lawsuits. It is ironic that in 2020, Kamala Harris introduced a resolution in the Senate to abolish qualified immunity for police officers while retaining it for herself.

What are American Catholics left with? Back before the election of 2020, vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris was more likely than any nominee in history to assume the Office of President of the United States at some future point due to the age of Joe Biden at that time. And yet she dropped out of the Democratic process with only a pitiful percentage of votes in the primaries. She has declared the 2 million members of the Knights of Columbus to be a subversive organization and has joined the new Democrat Party in its march toward socialism and its inevitable suppression of religious liberty.

But another voice, that of Representative Tulsi Gabbard, caught onto all this duplicity early on during the presidential debates of 2020. Before ending her own bid for the White House, Ms. Gabbard courageously unloaded her views on the suitability of Kamala Harris for the highest public office in the land. Kamala Harris dropped out of the primaries after receiving only two percent of the Democrats’ votes in Iowa in 2020. I’m giving the last word to Tulsi Gabbard:

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Editor’s note: Please share this post. You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

• The Unspoken Racist Arena of Roe v. Wade

• Cultural Meltdown: Prophetic Wisdom for a Troubled Age

• Don’t Defund Police. Defund Unions that Cover Up Corruption

• Wikileaks Found Catholics in the Basket of Deplorables

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Pope Francis, Fr. Frank Pavone and the End of Roe v. Wade

Catholics were shocked by news that Pope Francis signed a decree dismissing Fr. Frank Pavone from the priesthood just months after the reversal of Roe v. Wade.

January 4, 2023 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

As most readers of this post already know, I write as a priest in prison where I have spent the last 29 years in unjust confinement. In more recent years, much evidence has surfaced that I was wrongfully convicted, and that evidence has been repeatedly covered by a secular global media venue, The Wall Street Journal. Because I write for a blog with a global readership, others both here in my prison and beyond have come to see that faith is a better path to true freedom than any other. Priesthood, even in confinement, is meant to be lived in a state of sacrificial fatherhood.

Now I wonder how my stubborn clinging to something under such public assault as Catholic priesthood might be seen in the light of recent revelations about Pope Francis and the ever-growing reality of “cancelled priests” to which he seems to have lent the power of his pen. News of the dismissal from the priesthood of Father Frank Pavone, the most respected, outspoken, and visible prolife priest in North America, cast a good part of the Catholic prolife world back into the land of gloom just before Christmas. That drama continues with lots of finger-pointing.

As I ponder this troubling development, my own finger keeps turning like a compass needle to a possible causal connection. Midway through 2022 I wrote, “After Roe v. Wade, Hope for Life and a Nation’s Soul.” The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights sent that post to all its thousands of members asking them to read and share it. The U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade cast much of this nation into political turmoil. It generated on the political left waves of threatened reprisals against Catholic churches, prolife Catholics, and the entire prolife movement. Did reprisals come from within the Church as well?

My internal compass cannot help but notice that only five months later, the most visibly prolife Catholic priest in America was removed from the priesthood ostensibly for behaviors that ordinarily would not have resulted in such a penalty. Fr. Pavone and others with internal knowledge of this bombshell have insinuated that activist progressive bishops brought pressure to bear. If this is true, and evidence surfaces to support this claim, it would be a scandal of immense proportions for the prolife cause and for the Church.

There are some that would readily imagine political payback as the true heart of this decision. Others see it as an unjust punishment imposed for reasons more secular and political than ecclesial. In his homily to priests on his apostolic visit to the United States in Philadelphia in 1979, Pope John Paul II articulated the indelible character of the priestly vocation: “It cannot be that God who gave the impulse to say ‘yes’ now wishes to hear ‘no.’”

We are not owed explanations of the Pope’s deliberations so we may never have an adequate explanation of this. But I cannot forget the last words published by Father Richard John Neuhaus about my own situation. The late Father Neuhaus was one of the premier theologians and observers of Catholic culture in the Church in North America. In “A Kafkaesque Tale” in First Things magazine (August-September 2008) he wrote of my imprisonment:

“You may want to pray for Father MacRae and for a Church and a justice system that seem indifferent to justice.”

We must now pray as well for Father Frank Pavone and all who were involved in bringing about his separation from priesthood. The Church must not seem indifferent to justice. The timing of this matter could not have been worse for prolife Catholics who sacrificed much over many years working toward a conscience-driven judicial reversal of Roe v. Wade even as many in the Catholic hierarchy set it aside in favor of other moral priorities such as climate change.

Absent any other explanation for Father Pavone’s dismissal, many are left to conclude something nefarious. There is no shortage of demonic attack on the champions of the Catholic prolife movement. I alluded to this in a paragraph in my recent post, “Joseph’s Dream and the Birth of the Messiah”:

“Our culture’s turning away from life is also a turning away from God. The fact that many nominally Catholic politicians lend their voices and votes to that turning away is a betrayal of Biblical proportions. In the Story of God and human beings, we have been here before. Planned Parenthood is our culture’s Temple to Baal.”

Double Standards

I have, in the past, expressed concerns about the fervent witness of high-profile outspoken priests like Fr. Frank Pavone and Fr. James Altman. I have written of my belief that their message might be more effective with some toning down of their rhetoric. Some readers reminded me that Jesus Himself did not seem to think so when he drove the money-changers out of the Temple (Mark 11:15). So, to borrow a phrase from Pope Francis himself, “Who am I to judge?”

Still, I have witnessed Father Pavone react to this latest news with an aura of both written and verbal apparent disrespect for Church authority. His anger is suspect, but the absence of any anger would be much more suspect. Would priesthood mean so little to him that being discarded should be met with calm acquiescence?

I recently received a letter from a priest in which he wrote, “I understand that you have a problem with Pope Francis. Perhaps you just don’t understand him.” I asked the priest what gave him that impression. In response, he referred to a post of mine entitled, “Pope Francis in a Time of Heresy.” It is but one of many posts I have written about Pope Francis. None were disrespectful.

However, the priest who wrote to me had not read anything beyond the title before concluding that I have a problem with Pope Francis and therefore use this blog to rebel. That could not be further from the truth. The “heresy” described in that post was not that of Pope Francis at all. It rather challenged the many self-described traditional and conservative Catholics who openly charged that any question of divorce, remarriage, and Communion cheapens the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony and undermines it.

True or not, those same Catholics had little or nothing to say when it was the Sacrament of Holy Orders that came under assault in 2002 and remains so. The “heresy” post ended up holding the record for being shared on social media (over 25,000 times on Facebook alone) only because many who thought it accused Pope Francis of heresy never actually read it.

After news of Father Pavone’s dismissal from priesthood, one of our readers referred to Pope Francis in a comment as “the fake pope.” Like Elon Musk (but with none of his resources) I much prefer to let people speak their minds, but I asked to have the word “fake” removed before posting that comment. Francis is the legitimate successor of the Chair of Peter. As priests, both Father Pavone and I owe allegiance and fidelity to his office. Sometimes exercising that fidelity means also writing and speaking the truth. I am committed to doing so without anger or insult.

However, many readers of this blog have commented that a clear double standard exists in the discipline of priests. It is widely believed that conservative and traditional priests are treated with more oversight and disdain from hierarchy than so-called progressive clerics. Many cite Fr. James Martin who openly challenges and even disregards Catholic moral teaching on sexual and gender issues, and some of the German bishops who defied Pope Francis by the blessing of same-sex unions.

None have received any penalty, much less the nuclear bomb dropped on Father Pavone and Priests for Life. The U.S. Bishops Conference had an opportunity, supported by many bishops, to address with pro-abortion Catholic politicians the dichotomy between what they profess as Catholics and what they practice in regard to the right to life. A few bishops took a courageous stance. Most voted against it, and the matter was left to dangle unaddressed. I wrote of this double standard in “Biden and the Bishops: Communion and the Care of a Soul.”

Because the subject, and that post, surfaced just months before a presidential election in 2020, the topic was largely suppressed in the media, a trend that now has a familiar ring. Suppressed as well is the fact that Pope Francis has himself made many bold statements in support of the prolife cause while his climate change statements are widely disseminated in the media. Given this, one would hope that he would be conscious of double standards and their effect on clergy and laity alike.

A Bombshell for So Many Catholics

As I was preparing to write this post, a reader sent me a recording from the popular radio show, “Catholic Drive Time with Joe McClane.” The episode was devoted to news of Fr. Frank Pavone’s dismissal, and Pavone himself was a call-in guest of the show. Joe McClane referred to the dismissal as “a bombshell for so many Catholics.”

Father Pavone was asked to respond to the matter, and said with some sarcasm, “What took them so long?” I expect him to be angry and disappointed, but I do not think sarcasm serves his cause. One concerned priest and canon lawyer observed this as well, and told me that Father Pavone may not be entirely innocent in all this. I recall a similar discussion with a reader who defended former police officer Derek Chauvin who brought about the death of George Floyd in 2020. He stated that Floyd tried to pass a fake $20 bill. True or not, no one in America is executed over a fake $20 bill.

Also appearing on the same show was Father Gerald Murray, JCD, a well-known canon lawyer in the Archdiocese of New York who appears frequently as part of “The Papal Posse” on EWTN’s The World Over with Raymond Arroyo. I have much respect for Father Murray and his canonical expertise. He pointed out that the charges against Father Pavone are two-fold: blasphemy in Internet postings and persistent disobedience to his bishop.

The charges were adjudicated by the Vatican Congregation for Clergy at the behest of the Bishop of Amarillo, Texas, Father Pavone’s bishop. Father Pavone was then judged to be guilty of both offenses. However, neither of those offenses, even if found to be true, generally result in a canonical dismissal from the clerical state according to Father Murray who added that punishment for those offenses went beyond what is prescribed in Canon Law. Father Pavone’s bishop may have requested removal. Until a formal decree is issued, no one seems to know how this dismissal came about, according to Father Murray.

To his credit, Father Pavone went on to explain that he has laid out his defense against the charges on his personal website, FrFrankPavone.com. I am told that there is a lot there to read, and I encourage readers with concerns about this matter to peruse that site.

In his Catholic Drive Time radio interview, Father Pavone concluded, “I urge everyone to respect authority in the Church, but I do not respect abuse of authority.” He did not place blame directly with Pope Francis for his dismissal, but with “certain bishops” who “lie, block and obstruct to control the kind of prolife message” the Church will hear.” He cited as an example of the abuse of process that he learned of his dismissal from Catholic News Agency instead of from his own bishop.

Priests for Life

The high-profile case of Father Pavone has now resulted in a high-profile reaction, some of it marked by obvious anger. The Coalition for Canceled Priests issued a statement from Sister Dede Byrne who found national prominence when she was invited to address the Republic National Convention before the 2020 presidential election where she advocated strongly for rights and protections for the unborn. Here is a segment of her public response to the laicization of Father Frank Pavone:

“The most vocal prolife priest has been laicized! What crime has he done to warrant such a harsh punishment? In the wake of this travesty, we still have the most pro-death, anti-nuclear family president in our nation’s history who professes to be a Catholic in good standing ... with no real guidance from our bishops or the Vatican ... What appears to many Catholics who love our Church is selective mercy from the Pope of Mercy. I ask myself, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:7)

Sister Dede Byrne touched upon what should be a grave concern for every priest. What happened to Father Pavone likely would not have happened just a decade ago. Another canon lawyer explained to me that under a 21st-Century papal decree, bishops obtained the authority to seek a priest’s removal from ministry and even formal dismissal from the clerical state without a penal process. Some have come to see this as the Church’s own version of capital punishment. More frequent use of this development should cause concern for every priest and lay Catholic. Such a process invites abuse and the application of bias against what a bishop might perceive as ideologically undesirable clergy.

The message sent by Pope Francis is that he is on board with such a cause. I wonder if he fully knows the deep sadness and disillusionment now thrust upon priests, the faithful, and especially the prolife cause in this dichotomy. The Pope who assumed the Chair of Peter and launched the Year of Mercy in his papacy appears to have abandoned all mercy for priests.

I have not been dismissed from priesthood. I hope and pray that such an injustice never befalls me. Father Frank Pavone and I have only the grace of fortitude. I never knew I had it until recently. It is defined as “Strength of mind that allows one to endure pain or adversity with courage.” We could both simply abandon the Church and be free of all scrutiny and betrayal, but the grace of fortitude stands in the way. I thank God for that.

An appeal of this dismal is not possible because the outcome already bears the signature of the highest authority in the Church. In 2002, however, Saint John Paul II reminded bishops that they should not lose sight of the power of prayer and conversion in the life of a priest. The Pope is also a priest and he can reconsider his own conclusions. Pope Francis and Father Frank Pavone are both priests for life. Please pray for them in these difficult days for the priesthood. Above all, pray for justice. The Church and priesthood are much diminished without it.

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Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: Writing for The Catholic Thing, Fr. Peter M. J. Stravinskas, Ph.D, STD, has written perhaps the most pointed analysis in print on this matter: “Fr. Pavone and “The Spirit of Vatican I.”

Thank you for reading and sharing this week’s post. You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

The Duty of a Priest: Father Frank Pavone and Priests for Life

Pope Francis in a Time of Heresy

Will Pope Francis Stand Against Catholic Schism?

Biden and the Bishops: Communion and the Care of a Soul

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Photo courtesy of Vatican Media

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One of our Patron Saints, Saint Maximilian Kolbe, founded a religious site in his native Poland called Niepokalanowa. Today the Chapel has a real-time live feed for a most beautiful adoration chapel where people around the world can spend time in Eucharistic Adoration. We invite you to come and spend some quiet time adoring our Lord.

Click or tap the image for live access to the Adoration Chapel.

As you can see the monstrance for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is most unusual. It is an irony that all of you can see it but I cannot. So please remember me while you are there. For an understanding of the theology behind this particular monstrance of the Immaculata, see my post “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”