Catholic Unscripted Episode 13: Rupnik vs Pavone, Pope's radical appointments & King's Speech

 

Recorded on the 29th December before Pope Benedict XVI died.

We discuss the incongruity between the laicisation of pro-life hero Frank Pavone & the cover up of abuse committed by Marko Rupnik.

I wrote extensively about Pavone here. Although the problems that led to this sanction are well documented, it is extremely difficult to reconcile the removal of his vocational calling, given he has responded with humility and always sought obedience while maintaining the mission he has been a part of for numerous years, with the leniency given to disgraced Jesuit abuser Rupnik. 

I was one of the first to report on the Rupnik scandal for the Catholic Herald (see my article here). On the 21st December, I was asked to write a summary for Rorate Caeli, which you can read here.

Pavone was laicised, according to the letter to US bishops from the Nuncio, for disobedience and blasphemy.

What precisely was the blasphemy that Pavone committed and what precisely was his disobedience?

As I put in my previous post, it appears that these allegations have their basis in two incidents: His putting the aborted foetus on a table that was presented to look like an altar and/or his using mild profanity on Twitter. 

However, Pavone acknowledged the placing of the foetus was ill-considered and the profanity was wrong. He apologised and removed the offending tweet. I find it very difficult to understand how either of these actions deserve suspension or laicisation but definitely not laicisation. What did he do that deserves either in respect to "blasphemy"?

As for as disobedience what EVIDENCE exists that Pavone disobeyed Egan or Zurek? He did not want to accept their demands (but tried to some extent with Zurek, so far as is known) but sought excardination, which is a legitimate response to a demand made by a bishop that a priest does not want to accept.

The Pillar has recently reported that a 2017 letter to then-Father Frank Pavone warned the now-laicised leader of Priests for Life that his bishop had decided to ask the Vatican to dismiss him from the clerical state, and gave the priest an opportunity to request laicisation of his own accord.

The letter said that Pavone had been consistently disobedient to ecclesiastical authorities, and had left Bishop Patrick Zurek of Amarillo with no hope of engaging constructively with Pavone.

“Because of your scandalous behavior, your involvement in partisan politics, your persistent disobedience, your lack of respect for legitimate ecclesial authority, control, and oversight, you leave me no choice than to ask you to present a petition to the Holy See for dispensation from all of the obligations of sacred ordination and return to the lay state,” the May 5, 2017 letter explained.

“If you choose not to petition for the dispensation… I will submit a petition to the Congregation for Clergy to request that the Roman Pontiff dismiss you from the clerical state ad poenam,” Zurek wrote.

HOWEVER - a later letter from 2019 - two years later - from the Vatican to Pavone, appears to undo a lot of what Zurek did, or attempted to do in his 2017 letter. Pavone's reporting of his experience with the hierarchy on his webpage frfrankpavone.org is essential reading if you want to understand the complicated process.

We also discuss the rumored appointment of progressive German bishop Heiner Wilmer to replace Cardinal Ladaria as Prefect for the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith which would completely contradict the reports of Ladaria and Ouellet (Prefect for the Congregation for Bishops) to the German Bishops that their Synodal Path was not acceptable or even Catholic.

Dei Verbum:

10. Sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church. Holding fast to this deposit the entire holy people united with their shepherds remain always steadfast in the teaching of the Apostles, in the common life, in the breaking of the bread and in prayers (see Acts 2, 42, Greek text), so that holding to, practicing and professing the heritage of the faith, it becomes on the part of the bishops and faithful a single common effort. (7)

But the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, (8) has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, (9) whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed.

It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God's most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.

Finally we talk about the King's Christmas speech, which Gavin, quite controversially, asked had sowed the seeds of the destruction of the House of Windsor?