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	Groups Seek Priest's Return to Pro-life Emphasis By Karen Smith Welch Amarillo Globe-News September 15, 2011 http://amarillo.com/news/local-news/2011-09-15/groups-seek-priests-return-pro-life-emphasis#.TnMZDV0TpDU Two anti-abortion nonprofits plan protests to implore Amarillo’s Roman Catholic bishop to allow a high-profile priest to return to his pro-life ministry. Center for Bio-Ethical Reform Executive Director Gregg Cunningham and Operation Rescue President Troy Newman said Thursday they are mobilizing activists and billboard trucks from cities nationwide to converge next week in Amarillo for peaceful protests outside Diocese of Amarillo facilities and activities. Cunningham and Newman said the groups will use graphic images of aborted fetuses in “informational pickets” designed to spur people to urge Amarillo Bishop Patrick J. Zurek to allow the Rev. Frank Pavone to return to his international pro-life ministry. Zurek recalled Pavone to Amarillo on Monday, barring him from traveling on behalf of his Priests of Life nonprofit after a protracted disagreement over the financial transparency of Priests for Life and two affliated anti-abortion charities. Pavone is pursuing an appeal, ultimately to Rome. The priest said Wednesday he placed himself under the jurisdiction of the Amarillo diocese in 2005 because he was promised by the previous leadership, retired Bishop John W. Yanta, that he could pursue pro-life ministry full-time. Pavone left the Archdiocese of New York because he could not do so there, he said. Zurek has stated Pavone is to work in Amarillo until financial questions can be answered. Cunningham set plans in motion Thursday to bring activists, billboard trucks and planes that tow 50-by-100-foot billboards to Amarillo, he said. The California-based center has ordered “Zurek-specific” signs containing large color photographs of aborted fetuses to be affixed to the medium-duty box trucks. The groups plan “informational street pickets” outside diocese properties and activities. The groups will post parental warning signs near targeted churches, Cunningham said. Newman said his group, headquartered in Kansas, also will move trucks into the area and “peacefully pray to stand with Father Pavone. Really, he’s been sequestered in Amarillo when he’s needed around the country and around the globe.” Earlier this week, Joseph Scheidler, director of the Chicago-based Pro-Life Action League, said his group strongly supports Pavone but would not participate in the Amarillo protests. “We try to discourage that,” Scheidler said. “The bishops are kind of a fraternity. You attack one bishop, you are attacking the whole episcopal gathering.” karen.welch@amarillo.com
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