But will Fr. Frank Pavone take instruction from his bishop?

n a veiled swipe at this blog, Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life (video here) angri­ly stat­ed that he would “not take instruc­tion” from those who say (which I did) that his cute lit­tle stunt of turn­ing a fetus into a polit­i­cal prop for Don­ald Trump was a “sac­ri­lege.”

We laity need to learn our place.

How­ev­er, Fr. Pavone’s bish­op, the Most Rev. Patrick Zurek, has issued a state­ment of his own on this mat­ter, and I won­der whether Fr. Pavone will wish to “take instruc­tion” from him.

Here is what Bp. Zurek says in the state­ment:

Father Frank Pavone has post­ed a video on his Face­book page of the body of an abort­ed fetus, which is against the dig­ni­ty of human life and is a des­e­cra­tion of the altar. We believe that no one who is pro-life can exploit a human body for any rea­son, espe­cial­ly the body of a fetus.

Well, you know, strike me dead, that’s just what lit­tle old me, a lay­man, a med­dling blog­ger for the reli­gion watch­dog Patheos, said.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXUqwuzcGeU&w=560&h=315]

In fact, dear read­er, Bp. Zurek’s words were stronger than mine. I said “sac­ri­lege”; His Excel­len­cy said des­e­cra­tion. His Excel­len­cy said exploita­tion.

Will Fr. Pavone take instruc­tion from his Ordi­nary? That is the ques­tion.

•••

Mean­while on Face­book, some are using this inci­dent as just one more excuse to engage in a lit­tle Pope Fran­cis Derange­ment Syn­drome:

I have seen felt ban­ners, stuffed ani­mals, pump­kins etc.…on the altar, Pope Fran­cis put this beach ball on the altar for a teen event, nev­er saw Mark Shea, Scott Eric Alt, or any oth­er lib­er­al get out­raged, but put an abort­ed baby there and plead for the unborn and they go wild.….now who is polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed? What are their pri­or­i­ties? God save our church from lib­er­als.

(For I am a lib­er­al, accord­ing to those who have no earth­ly clue how to check an archive.)

At any rate, I see that I must once more point out the dif­fer­ence between apples and pinecones.

First, Pope Fran­cis is the Church’s supreme leg­is­la­tor, and Fr. Frank Pavone is not.

Sec­ond, the beach­ball was a gift to Pope Fran­cis at World Youth Day, and he put it on the altar, out­side the con­text of a Mass, as a ges­ture of respect, in much the same way that gifts are con­stant­ly brought to the altar.

Third, the Holy Father did not use the beach­ball as a prop in advo­ca­cy for a par­tic­u­lar pres­i­den­tial can­di­date. As an object, and not a per­son, the beach­ball has no per­son­al dig­ni­ty to vio­late.

But once again we are being told that, in the fight against abor­tion, the ends jus­ti­fy the means. “What­ev­er it takes” some of Fr. Pavone’s apol­o­gists are say­ing. “Des­per­ate times require des­per­ate mea­sures.”

No. This is the heresy of Con­se­quen­tial­ism. In Romans 3:7–8, St. Paul tells us that we may not do evil that good may come. The Church reit­er­ates this in the Cat­e­chism (CCC 1756). Pope St. John Paul II like­wise con­demns Con­se­quen­tial­ism in para­graphs 75 and fol­low­ing of Ver­i­tatis Splen­dor. “Such the­o­ries,” the pope writes, “are not faith­ful to the Church’s teach­ing. … A good inten­tion,” he goes on, “is not itself suf­fi­cient, but a cor­rect choice of actions is also need­ed.”

There is no “what­ev­er it takes.” There is no “des­per­ate times require des­per­ate mea­sures.” There is only human choice judged on its own terms, the good of which must be con­sis­tent with the good it desires to achieve. That is the teach­ing of the Church.

One may not—to use Bish­op Zurek’s descrip­tion of Fr. Pavone’s actions—desecrate the altar or exploit the human body in order to achieve an end to abor­tion, or the elec­tion of Don­ald Trump. But that is what Fr. Pavone did do, in the judg­ment of his Ordi­nary.

So I ask again: Will Fr. Pavone take instruc­tion from his bish­op?