By Karen Smith Welch
Amarillo Globe-News
October 10, 2011
amarillo.com/news/local-news/2011-10-09/supporters-speak-out-against-pavones-suspension-convent
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| Globe-NewsFather Frank Pavone speaks during an interview Wednesday September 14, 2011 outside St. Mary's Church on S. Washington before conducting a noon mass service. |
About 1,700 miles from the Staten Island, N.Y., headquarters of the Rev. Frank Pavone's international anti-abortion ministry, his temporary home sits in a place fittingly called Prayer Town.
He landed in the Roman Catholic convent an hour's drive northwest of Amarillo after his bishop ordered him back to the local diocese to sort out questions over the finances of Priests for Life and other nonprofit groups under Pavone's watch.
The move announced by Bishop Patrick J. Zurek in a fiery letter last month is regarded by Pavone's supporters not as a skirmish over money, but the latest battle in the abortion war.
In addition to suspending Pavone from ministry outside Amarillo, Zurek has prohibited the activist priest from appearing on the Eternal Word Television Network, available to more than 160 million households worldwide. The independent nonprofit Catholic network based in Alabama is one of Pavone's primary vehicles for spreading his pro-life message. The bishop, Pavone's backers say, has effectively muzzled one of the movement's most recognized voices.
Zurek "has taken one of the most staunch pro-life leaders, one of the most effective ones, out of the battle and shut down his organization," abortion foe and Pavone ally Mark Crutcher said on a recorded talk show uploaded to YouTube last week. "You can sugar coat it all you want to, but that's what's happening, and it's outrageous."
"They have this man squirreled away, literally, in a convent. This convent is an hour outside of Amarillo — and when you're in Amarillo, you're almost at the end of the world anyway," Crutcher said on a LifeTalk segment posted Thursday to YouTube.
"You're talking about isolation here. Desolation."
The reference is to the Disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, the tiny Franciscan charismatic religious community near Cal Farley's Boys Ranch that has become Pavone's temporary home. Crutcher compared the priest's accommodations to "solitary confinement," a place where he's holed away in a tiny room with a bathroom, but neither a television nor a phone, where he takes his meals alone.
Nuns at the convent said Pavone's air-conditioned apartment includes a kitchen, and he has access to the Internet, along with television at a dining hall, where he could dine with others if he chose.
While Priests for Life has continued operating in his absence, Pavone has relied on new media to maintain the fight against his old foe, commenting on his blog, Twitter and Facebook and posting videos to YouTube.
Still, Crutcher contended, the priest not only has been virtually silenced but cast to the wilderness.
"To tell you how bad things are: Every room has a shovel in it ... to kill snakes," Crutcher said. "There are so many snakes out there, every room has a shovel."
"Well, we do have rattlesnakes," said Sister Philip Ellenberger, who resides at the convent. "There's a pair of shovels in each of the dining halls. But we would not require Father Pavone to kill snakes. He would just have to call us. But I haven't seen a snake in years, to be honest with you."
Meanwhile, questions over money linger. Pavone has insisted he's provided the bishop with every relevant financial record. Among those, he has said, is an audit posted to Priests for Life's website showing the organization finished last year with a revenues gap of $1.4 million. The group has raked in $5 million to $10 million annually since 2002, according to its tax returns.
Zurek also has questioned the management of Priests for Life affiliates Rachel's Vineyard and Gospel of Life Ministries, the latter of which lost its tax-exempt status last year, according to IRS records. The bishop has requested audits of those groups. Pavone has said that work is being prepared.
Groups tied to Pavone are intertwined with others throughout the anti-abortion movement, which includes some of the priest's most vocal backers.
Crutcher, for example, is listed as a Priests for Life board member on corporate documents filed with the Texas Secretary of State in 2008. Pavone is a co-host for the recorded talk show, "LifeTalk," that Crutcher's Life Dynamics makes available in batches on DVD for purchase. Priests for Life has granted money — $65,000 in 2007 — to Denton-based Life Dynamics.
Similarly, the priest is linked to the California-based Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, which rolled into Amarillo with trucks and a plane toting images of aborted fetuses in support of Pavone. He is a board member of the center, and center Executive Director Gregg Cunningham as recently as 2008 was listed as a board member of Priests for Life.
Connections such as those form the backdrop to the latest salvos in the spat between bishop and priest. Neither appears eager to clear the muddle.
The bishop posted a statement last week to the diocese website that affirmed his support of the pro-life cause, but he could not be reached for comment for this story. Pavone did not return calls.
He has celebrated Mass for the convent "at least on Saturdays and Sundays when he's here," Ellenberger said. "Now, sometimes he's not here. I'm not sure where he goes, but to my knowledge, he's free to move around in the diocese.
"The concept that he's being tied up and kept in a dungeon is really, I think, the figment of somebody's imagination who wants to cause trouble."
Crutcher, whose YouTube video runs 18 minutes with him doing most of the talking, refused to address questions Friday unless the Amarillo Globe-News agreed to publish his comments in their entirety. The Globe-News declined.
Whatever his living conditions, Pavone has been a welcome guest, Ellenberger said.
"We appreciate him so much," Ellenberger said. "He speaks with such conviction. His sermons are so good. And we're actually taping everything, so I don't know if that's for him to use, you know, on YouTube.
"The farthest thing imaginable is that he's out of contact with everybody."
Contact: karen.welch@amarillo.com
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