Despite efforts from other members of the anti-abortion rights movement to end the suspension, Zurek said in a public statement recently that Pavone “is to remain in the Diocese for an indefinite period of time for prayer and reflection.”

Pavone’s suspension was announced earlier last month over allegations of “financial improprieties.” Zurek wrote in his first letter announcing the suspension that his “decision is the result of deep concerns regarding his stewardship over the finances of the Priests for Life (PFL) organization. The PFL has become a business that is quite lucrative which provides Father Pavone with financial independence from all legitimate ecclesiastical oversight.”

Via LifeSiteNews:

LifeSiteNews spoke with Fr. Pavone today about the letter. “The diocese is saying two things at the same time,” Fr. Pavone said. “They are saying that I’m a priest in good standing [may practice priestly ministry] and yet they are saying that I’m suspended.”

Fr. Pavone noted that his canon lawyer was “trying to make sense” of those two seemingly contradictory statements.

For his part, Pavone said, “I’m patiently waiting to get clarification.”

Speaking for the Diocese of Amarillo, Deacon Floyd Ashley told LifeSiteNews that suspension means that Pavone “has no faculties outside the diocese of Amarillo.”

Pavone has been a prominent figure in the anti-abortion movement. He has taken part in the racially charged “pro-life freedom rides” demonstration and has accused Planned Parenthood of “targeting the abortion of black babies.” He said the chain of women’s clinics “is eager and willing to cover up the prostitution enslavement of young girls — including minorities — so long as they make money doing it.”

He has also recently compared supporting abortion rights to supporting terrorism.

Pavone, a prominent figure in the anti-abortion movement, was recently suspended from taking part in his anti-abortion activities due to allegations of “financial improprieties.”

In a letter addressing the allegations against Pavone, the bishop who suspended Pavone said that Priests for Life had “become a business that is quite lucrative which provides Father Pavone with financial independence from all legitimate ecclesiastical oversight.”

Catholics for Choice, a religious abortion rights advocacy group, said in a statement that “Pavone has used his own image and personality to promote his cause, posting large photographs of himself in a wide variety of materials, especially outdoor advertising.”

In response to the allegations, anti-abortion groups have stood by Pavone and claim the allegations are “unfounded attacks.”

Pavone recently spoke on his own behalf about the controversy on the EWTN — a Catholic television station. He said he was considering creating a ministry within the Catholic Church that would allow him to fight abortion rights.

According to EWTN:

Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, has said that if his bishop does not allow him to return to full-time pro-life work, he will consider being incardinated in a different diocese or founding a religious order to continue his pro-life ministry.

The well-known pro-life priest also said that he had been actively talking with Bishop Patrick J. Zurek of Amarillo, Texas for months about spending more time in the diocese before the bishop forbid him from ministry outside of the diocese.

According to a press release from the group:

To ensure that the Diocese understands exactly what is at stake in Bishop Zurek’s decision to “suspend” Fr. Pavone from pro-life work outside of Amarillo, CBR’s picket signs will include large, color photos of aborted babies.

Pickets will be conducted at many of the Diocese’s forty-nine parish churches, with special emphasis on St. Laurence and the nine other parish churches in the City of Amarillo, proper. Parental warning signs will be posted as a courtesy near targeted churches, to caution parents of small children that they may wish to attend Mass elsewhere. Demonstrations will also be staged at Holy Cross Academy to encourage students to contact Bishop on Fr. Pavone’s behalf.

Although Bishop Zurek is actively attempting to discourage Catholics from donating to Priests For Life, we will not stoop to any reciprocal attempt to discourage Catholics from donating to the Diocese of Amarillo.

Street pickets will be supplemented by the operation of a fleet of large billboard trucks bearing signs which will also depict aborted babies and urge Amarillo Catholics to tactfully contact Bishop Zurek to request that he “FREE FR. FRANK!” The trucks will be accompanied by aircraft towing large aerial billboards which will also bear aborted baby imagery and exhortational text messages.

These pickets will continue until Bishop Zurek releases Fr. Pavone from what amounts from ecclesiastical “house arrest.”

The group claims that Zurek “has chosen to convert a routine personnel conflict into a proxy for the wider ideological war being fought over the Church’s response to abortion.”

In a letter addressing the allegations against Pavone, Zurek explains that Priests for Life “has become a business that is quite lucrative which provides Father Pavone with financial independence from all legitimate ecclesiastical oversight.”

Catholics for Choice, a religious abortion rights advocacy group, said in a statement that “Pavone has used his own image and personality to promote his cause, posting large photographs of himself in a wide variety of materials, especially outdoor advertising”:

He often described himself in terms reminiscent of a touring performer or campaigning candidate for office. In a May 2006 letter to supporters, the PFL leader basked in the “commitment and enthusiastic response” of his fans. He added that the “dynamic” of his interaction with supporters—hence, not his commitment to the cause—was “what drew me into full-time pro-life ministry.”

Catholics for Choice also mentioned that “in 2007, [Pavone] transferred [Priests for Life] to its current location in Amarillo, where an attempt to start a seminary for priests was abandoned due to a lack of recruits—despite the organization’s $10.8 million budget.”

Operation Rescue, has also announced it is standing behind Pavone.

Pavone has been a prominent figure in the anti-abortion movement. He was scheduled to speak at this year’s Summer of Mercy 2.o event in Maryland.

Pavone is the national director of Priests for Life and is president of the National Pro-Life Religious Council. He has spoken against Planned Parenthood and has backed some of the more controversial members of the anti-abortion movement, such as Randall Terry.

Even though Terry had called Pavone a perfect example of why the anti-abortion movement “is losing” the fight to stop abortion, Pavone has publicly vowed to vote for Terry. Terry, the founder of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, is running for president as a Democrat as a way to bring attention to abortion. He has admitted his campaign is a stunt aimed at creating “a crisis of conscience for Americans regarding the slaughter of the unborn and thereby hastening the end of legalized child-killing” and attacking “President Obama’s agenda starting with child-killing, but also including our battle against socialism, our enslavement to debt, and more.”

In a statement Pavone released with Priests for Life, Pavone accused Planned Parenthood of “targeting the abortion of black babies.” He also said the chain of women’s clinics “is eager and willing to cover up the prostitution enslavement of young girls — including minorities — so long as they make money doing it.”

According to a press release just issued by Catholics for Choice:

The local bishop, Patrick J. Zurek, wrote in a letter to all of the bishops in the US, “My decision is the result of deep concerns regarding his stewardship over the finances of the Priests for Life (PFL) organization. The PFL has become a business that is quite lucrative which provides Father Pavone with financial independence from all legitimate ecclesiastical oversight.”

Pavone began running PFL full time in late 1993, and subsequently moved it from California to Port Chester, New York, and then to the New York City borough of Staten Island. In 2007 he transferred PFL to its current location in Amarillo, where an attempt to start a seminary for priests was abandoned due to a lack of recruits—despite the organization’s $10.8 million budget.

Pavone has used his own image and personality to promote his cause, posting large photographs of himself in a wide variety of materials, especially outdoor advertising. He often described himself in terms reminiscent of a touring performer or campaigning candidate for office. In a May 2006 letter to supporters, the PFL leader basked in the “commitment and enthusiastic response” of his fans. He added that the “dynamic” of his interaction with supporters—hence, not his commitment to the cause—was “what drew me into full-time pro-life ministry.”

The group also points to Pavone’s involvement in a slew of other radical anti-abortion rights campaigns, including the “pro-life freedom rides” and the Terri Schiavo case.

Among the many hours of scheduled “praying” and “public witness” outside of  Carhart’s clinic is  a scheduled “live ultrasound.” The event takes place from July 30 to Aug. 7, and includes guest speaker Frank Pavone of Priests for Life. #

Pavone is the national director of Priests for Life and is president of the National Prolife Religious Council. He has spoken against Planned Parenthood and has backed some of the more extreme members of the anti-abortion rights movement, such as Randall Terry.#

Even though Terry had previously called Pavone a perfect example of “why [the anti-abortion rights movement] is losing this fight” to stop abortion, Pavone has publiclyvowed to vote for Terry. Terry, the founder of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, is running for president as a way to bring attention to abortion. He has admitted the campaign is a stunt aimed at creating “a crisis of conscience for Americans regarding the slaughter of the unborn and thereby hastening the end of legalized child-killing” and attacking “President Obama’s agenda starting with child-killing, but also including our battle against socialism, our enslavement to debt, and more.” #

In a statement Pavone released with Priests for Life, Pavone accused Planned Parenthood of “targeting the abortion of black babies.” He also said the chain of women’s clinics “is eager and willing to cover up the prostitution enslavement of young girls — including minorities — so long as they make money doing it.” #

According to a recent press release from Rev. Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, “Summer of Mercy 2.0″ is being “sponsored and organized by The Maryland Coalition for Life, The Christian Defense Coalition, Operation Rescue and the local churches of Maryland.” Mahoney describes the event as “celebrating the 20th Anniversary of ‘The “Summer of Mercy’ in Wichita, Kansas where over 50,000 pro-life activists gathered to cry out to God for an end to abortion in 1991.” #

The event that Mahoney is “celebrating” was a similar event also entitled “Summer of Mercy” that targeted abortion provider George Tiller in the early 1990s. Tiller was eventually  shot in 1993 by an anti-abortion activist in Kansas where the event took place. He was later murdered in 2009 by another activist in Kansas. #

Following Tiller’s assassination, Mahoney told Time magazine, “Politically, [Tiller’s murder] could not have happened at a worse time.” He said, “Please, don’t use this tragic situation to broad-brush the pro-life community as extremists.” #

Scheduled speaker Frank Pavone told The Washington Independent following the murder: #

“I wouldn’t put it past abortion advocates in Congress to use this tragedy to put more protections in place for the so-called right to choose,” said Frank Pavone. “That would just feed into the problem. There’s a lot of disappointment and frustration out there as a result of 2008 elections. People feel desperate. I’m not justifying what happened to Tiller at all when I say that it’s not surprising that a pattern begins to develop — the administration is hostile to the anti-abortion movement, there are acts of violence from people who feel helpless.” #

Two years after the death of Tiller, groups such as Operation Rescue and the Christian Defense coalition are planning to target yet another abortion provider. Carhart’s clinic is the site for the overwhelming majority of the “Summer of Mercy.” Carhart has already been the target of a number of attacks from the anti-abortion movement. #

Pro-abortion rights groups plan to make their presence known at this year’s “Summer of Mercy,” however. Side-by-side events called the “Summer of Choice” and “Summer of Trust” are scheduled to take place during the “Summer of Mercy” activities. #

Gary Bauer and Randall Terry (American Values, Wikimedia)

On Sunday, when he heard that abortion doctor George Tiller had been murdered outside of his Wichita, Kans. church, Fr. Frank Pavone was “overcome by sadness.” He had opposed Tiller’s work vociferously, for many years. But he didn’t want the fight against his late-term abortion practice to end like this.

“I wanted to come to a legal peaceful way of stopping Tiller’s activities,” Pavone told TWI. “I believe that we were closing in on the revocation of his medical license. So I reacted with sadness. I knew the circus was about to begin.”

Image by: Matt Mahurin

The “circus” is what many anti-abortion activists are bracing for in the wake of the first murder of an abortion doctor since 1998. Every major anti-abortion group responded to Sunday’s events, almost all of them condemning alleged murderer Scott Roeder. “Violence is never an answer in advancing the pro-life message,” said Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) in a statement. The National Right to Life Committee extended “sympathies to Dr. Tiller’s family.” Phill Kline, the hard-line conservative Kansas lawyer who repeatedly sued for Tiller’s patient records, called the murder a “lawless and violent act” that “should be met with the full force of law.” All of this was aimed to pre-empt charges that the broader anti-abortion movement should share the blame for what happened.

Activists are not yet sure how the Tiller murder has altered the landscape of abortion politics. A spokesman for one major anti-abortion group, who chose to remain anonymous, said that reaction would be limited to a short statement because “this was a horrendous tragedy, a heinous act, and we’re not fielding questions about some kook who doesn’t represent our organization or anti-abortion movement in any way.” Other spokesmen dismissed the immediate response of Randall Terry, the anti-aboriton activist who called Tiller a “mass murderer” at a hastily assembled Monday press conference, as a ploy for attention that put unneeded political heat on the rest of the movement.

One reason for the relative hush is that movement veterans recall how, in the 1990s, attacks on abortion providers gave rise to new laws protecting their businesses from protests and aggressively going after radical anti-abortion activists. In 1994, after a wave of attacks on abortion clinics, President Bill Clinton signed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act to ban protests that restricted doctors and patients from entering clinics. Four years later Attorney General Janet Reno set up a task force to monitor violence against abortion providers — a strategy that The New York Times asked current Attorney General Eric Holder to revisit.

Anti-abortion leaders quickly got out front to denounce the idea of a large-scale response to Tiller. Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, the head of the Christian Defense Coalition, staged a protest outside of the Supreme Court asking Barack Obama and Democrats “not to repeat the mistakes of the Clinton administration in the mid-’90s and use this tragedy for political gain.” One of the chief worries among activists — whether Obama will revisit a pledge he made to Planned Parenthood during the 2008 campaign and push for the Freedom of Choice Act, a bill that would roll back Bush-era federal restrictions on abortion.

“I wouldn’t put it past abortion advocates in Congress to use this tragedy to put more protections in place for the so-called right to choose,” said Frank Pavone. “That would just feed into the problem. There’s a lot of disappointment and frustration out there as a result of 2008 elections. People feel desperate. I’m not justifying what happened to Tiller at all when I say that it’s not surprising that a pattern begins to develop — the administration is hostile to the anti-abortion movement, there are acts of violence from people who feel helpless.”

As of Tuesday, there was no sign that the anti-abortion movement’s foes in Congress were acting out the way that Pavone expected. In March, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) hinted that FOCA would be introduced “sooner rather than later” for a new vote. But Nadler spokesman Ilan Kayatsky said that there were no discussions of FOCA after the news of Tiller’s murder broke, just as Congress was returning from a weeklong recess. “The reasons to re-introduce FOCA at some point,” said Kayatsky, “will be the same reasons that preceded this murder.”

Without legislation to respond to and oppose, anti-abortion activists have begun to push back against the news that Department of Justice dispatched federal marshals to protect abortion clinics that requested extra, temporary security. That has been interpreted in some anti-abortion circles as a warning to opponents of administration policy. And the murder of a military recruiter in Little Rock — Muslim convert Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad is the suspect — has prodded activists to portray coverage of Tiller’s murder as unfairly slanted and overblown. Jill Stanek, an anti-abortion blogger and activist who gained fame in 2008 after arguing that Barack Obama had effectively supported infanticide as a state senator, responded to the Little Rock murders with a simple, unsubtle question: “Where are Obama and Holder?” Gary Bauer, the president of American Values, told TWI that the “benefit of the doubt” was given to Islamic terrorists but not to anti-abortion extremists. Reporters, said Bauer, ask whether anti-abortion extremists are “linked to pro-life groups,” while assuming that suspects like Abdulhakim Muhammad were acting alone.

“It would be interesting to see whether or not the attorney general will now send marshals to protect military recruiting stations,” said Bauer. “There’s hypocrisy here from the people who are screaming out about the brutal descrution of George Tiller’s life, who then spend the rest of the year talking about how the destruction of unborn children is a Constitutional right.”

Joseph M. Scheidler, the national director of the Pro-Life Action League, argued that the reaction to Tiller — including the federal marshals — was “just a show,” and no different from how “the abortionists blame the pro-life movement for everything, anyway.”

“It’s like the swine flu,” said Scheidler. “It’s something for the press to get people to focus on so they don’t obsess over the declining economic conditions.”

By the close of Tuesday, anti-abortion activists had moved from messages of condolence for Tiller to aggressive pushback on any use of the murder as a political issue. Manny Miranda, the chairman of the Third Branch Conference, suggested that the murder might have disrupted the ability of anti-abortion activists to push Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on their issue “had it come up at a more proximate moment.” Since conservatives will have time to move on from the murder, the issue and the circus around it may end up starved for attention.

“It’s going to be a month and a half or two months until the hearings,” said Miranda, who has wrangled dozens of anti-abortion activists into a coalition demanding a “democratic filibuster” of the nominee. “It would be foul play to bring up the Tiller thing, just as if somebody wanted to bring up how late-term abortions are performed in utero. You just don’t play it like that.”