Frank Pavone


Frank Anthony Pavone is an American anti-abortion activist and a laicised Roman Catholic priest. He is the national director of Priests for Life and the chairman and pastoral director of its Rachel's Vineyard project. He is also the president of the National Pro-Life Religious Council, an umbrella group of various anti-abortion Christian denominations, and the pastoral director of the Silent No More campaign.
The Vatican defrocked Pavone for "blasphemous" social media posts and disobedience of his bishop on November 9, 2022. The defrocking mandated that Pavone no longer present himself as a priest.
Pavone's anti-abortion activism was not cited as the reason for his dismissal. However, he had been involved in other controversies, including financial scrutiny of Priests for Life and a 2016 livestream in which he placed an unclothed, aborted fetus onto an altar.
In February 2023, Pavone was asked to step down as national director of Priests for Life after allegations were released that he sexually harassed multiple women.

Early life

Pavone was born in 1959 in Port Chester, New York, to Marion and Joseph Pavone. His father was a hardware salesman. Pavone decided to become a priest as a child. He attended the 1976 March for Life, where he became an anti-abortion activist. After graduating as valedictorian of his high school class, he enrolled at Don Bosco College, a Salesian major seminary in Newton, New Jersey, later leaving the Salesian Order and joining the Archdiocese of New York.

Priesthood

Pavone was ordained to the priesthood on November 12, 1988, by Cardinal John O'Connor, then Archbishop of New York, and was assigned to St. Charles Church in Staten Island. During that time, in addition to parish duties, he began producing television broadcasts on local cable TV channels. In 1993, O'Connor appointed him as director of Priests for Life.
In the late 1990s, Pavone served at the Holy See's Pontifical Council for the Family, an office which coordinated pro-life activities for the Catholic Church worldwide and his role included encouraging pro-life leaders to establish local projects.
In 2001, Pavone announced a $12 million advertising campaign designed to welcome women who had had abortions back into the church and worked to combine this work with existing efforts underway through the healing outreach of the National Council of Catholic Bishops. Pavone was also honored at the annual "Proudly Pro-Life" award dinner which was organized by the National Right to Life Committee and hosted at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York.

Diocese of Amarillo

After a difference in opinion with Cardinal Edward Egan in New York, Pavone sought and received a transfer to the Diocese of Amarillo, Texas. Pavone informed Egan that he wanted to continue to pursue anti-abortion work on a full-time basis and that Bishop John Yanta of Amarillo, Texas, had agreed to support this. The transfer occurred in 2005.
In March 2005, the Diocese of Amarillo announced that Pavone would establish a religious community called Missionaries of the Gospel of Life, a collective of priests and seminarians exclusively dedicated to anti-abortion work. In 2007, Bishop John Yanta, with the approval of the Holy See, suppressed the community. In 2008, the Diocese of Amarillo and Priests for Life issued a statement indicating that the Missionaries of the Gospel of Life would merge with Priests for Life. Pavone indicated that the priestly formation activities of the Missionaries of the Gospel of Life were interfering with his anti-abortion advocacy efforts.
Pavone and Priests for Life announced that on November 11, 2019, by a decree of the Holy See, the Congregation for the Clergy had dismissed Bishop Zurek's restrictions formerly placed upon Pavone and authorized him to transfer from the Diocese of Amarillo and find a bishop who supported his ministry.
In 2022, Pavone was working with a team of canon lawyers on various issues, and seeking incardination in a new, unspecified diocese.

Laicization

Pavone was dismissed from the clerical state by decree of the Dicastery for the Clergy for "blasphemous communications on social media" and "persistent disobedience of the lawful instructions of his diocesan bishop". The prefect of the Dicastery for the Clergy wrote a letter, dated November 9, 2022, explaining that the decision was not open to appeal. The apostolic nuncio, Christophe Pierre, communicated this decision to the bishops of the United States on December 13, 2022.
A spokeswoman for his team told the National Catholic Register that Pavone had participated in the canonical process that led to his laicization. Pavone continued to celebrate Mass until December 17, and the Priests for Life website called him a priest in good standing. The Schindler family stated that they stand with Pavone in the laicization issue.
When contacted by the Catholic News Agency on December 17, Pavone told the reporter that it was the first he had heard of the decision, although by mid-January 2023, Pavone stated that it was possible he had been sent a notice before the November 9 communication and he "simply did not see it". A few days later, on December 19, Pavone stated that "his idea that any of this is permanent in terms of dismissal from the priesthood is simply incorrect, because we're going to continue", and added that in the future "there will be a next pope, and the next pope can reinstate me".
In 2025, Pavone began to fundraise for an appeal to Pope Leo XIV to be restored to the clerical state.

Activism

Pavone provided much commentary during the Terri Schiavo controversy, having been on the limited visitors' list and at her bedside many times, including during her final hours. He delivered the homily at Schiavo's funeral Mass at the Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church in Gulfport, Florida, on April 5, 2005.
He was a member of James Dobson's Focus on the Family Institute.
Pavone was threatened with death by Theodore Shulman, an abortion rights advocate. Shulman indicated that Pavone would be killed if Scott Roeder, the murderer of George Tiller, was acquitted. Commenting on the threat, Pavone said, "I have already publicly forgiven Mr. Shulman and pray for him every day."

Norma McCorvey

McCorvey was the lead plaintiff "Jane Roe" in the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion throughout the United States. After Pavone's friend Reverend Flip Benham baptized McCorvey, in 1998 Pavone received her into the Catholic Church, and together they began to collaborate on anti-abortion activities. Pavone was both friend and spiritual mentor to McCorvey in the later years of her life, as she came to regret her involvement in the abortion rights issue in the early 1970s.

Terry Schiavo

Terry Schiavo was a woman who fell into a coma and whose husband and legal guardian argued with her parents about whether to keep Schiavo on life support. During 1998–2005, there were a series of complex legal cases regarding Schiavo's care, with Schiavo's parents arguing that she showed some responsiveness to them and life support via a feeding tube should continue, while Shiavo's husband argued that she was in a permanent vegetative state without possibility of recovery and that Schiavo herself would not have wanted to be on life support and therefore, her feeding tube should be removed. In 1999, Pavone was placed on the short, court-ordered "approved visitor" list by Schiavo's parents and provided both moral and spiritual support to Schiavo and her parents right up until the time of her death. Pavone's said that during his bedside time with Schiavo that she would respond when he would pray with her, opening her eyes and looking at him, and closing her eyes during the prayer, opening them again upon completion. Pavone was with Schiavo at the time of her death, indicating it was not peaceful, stating that "She was a person who for 13 days had no food or water. She was, as you would expect, very drawn in her appearance as opposed to when I had seen her before. Her eyes were open but they were moving from one side to the next, constantly darting back and forth. I watched her for hours, and the best way I can describe the look on her face is 'terrified sadness'." Pavone delivered the main homily at Schiavo's funeral Mass on April 5, 2005.

Joseph Maraachli case

In 2011, Pavone was involved in assisting the family of Moe Maraachli, a Canadian man who, with his wife, sought a medical procedure for their dying son, who came to be known as "Baby Joseph", but were refused the treatment in Canada. They turned to Pavone for assistance, and he arranged, through his Priests for Life organization, to have the baby transferred to SSM Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center in St. Louis, Missouri, where the child received a tracheotomy, and then to have him flown back home, breathing on his own without a machine. After successfully receiving the procedure in March 2011, "Baby Joseph" Maraachli returned home, where he died in September 2011.

Kermit Gosnell

In 2013, Pavone presided over a service to give names to the 45 human fetuses found in Kermit Gosnell's Philadelphia abortion clinic. During the service, Pavone asked, "Who are these children, and whose are these children? Are they medical waste or are they our brothers and sisters?" The service also called for prayers and healing for the parents of the aborted babies. Pavone contacted the Philadelphia Medical Examiner to request permission to bury the "Gosnell babies". The request was denied.

Supreme Court insurance case

Along with his Priests for Life organization and some of its other leaders, Pavone was a petitioner at the US Supreme Court in the case Priests for Life v. Burwell. The case was later consolidated with six other cases in Zubik v. Burwell. These cases challenged an Obama administration mandate from the Department of Health and Human Services that the petitioners said violated their religious freedom by forcing them to be complicit in the process of providing insurance coverage for contraception and certain forms of abortion. These cases successfully relieved Priests for Life and the other petitioners of the mandate.