Father Frank Pavone, a frontrunner of the US anti-abortion motion and a powerful supporter of former president Donald Trump, has been dismissed from the Catholic priesthood for “blasphemous” social media posts and disobedience to bishops.
The Vatican defrocked Pavone in November, in accordance with a letter despatched to US bishops from its ambassador to Washington. The letter, seen by Reuters, says Pavone is not going to be allowed to attraction.
Pavone was defrocked for “blasphemous communications on social media and protracted disobedience of the lawful directions of his diocesan bishop,” the letter says.
Within the 2016 presidential marketing campaign he launched a video of an aborted fetus on an altar and urged Catholics to not vote for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, who later misplaced to Trump.
His defrocking was first reported by the conservative Catholic Information Company (CNA).
Pavone, 63, a New Yorker, has had a scratchy relationship with a lot of his bishop superiors throughout his clerical profession, typically over actions they deemed too political.
After Trump misplaced to Joe Biden in 2020, Pavone was amongst Trump supporters who questioned the validity of the elections.
In a one hour, 40 minute video on Sunday, Pavone, nonetheless sporting a priest’s collar, mentioned he had been “persecuted within the Church for many years” and derided his critics as “the dumbest on the planet”.
In a Twitter publish in 2020 he spoke of “supporters of this goddamn loser Biden and his morally corrupt, America-hating, God-hating Democrat social gathering”.
He referred to that episode in his Sunday video, saying “I used the phrase GD in a response to anyone in a tweet and since they wish to throw me out of the priesthood.”
Throughout the 2020 presidential marketing campaign he was reprimanded for suggesting that Catholics who voted for Democrats shouldn’t be absolved of their sins in confessions.
In his video on Sunday, he accused his critics of “spouting Democrat speaking factors”.
He mentioned he nonetheless had not acquired any official communication from the Vatican on his dismissal and criticized the Vatican for “speaking to the media earlier than you speak to the priest”.
He added: “I am by no means going to go away the priesthood”.
