Father Pavone under fire for political video showing unborn child on altar

November 08, 2016

Father Frank Pavone, the controversial leader of Priests for Life, has sparked outrage by posting a Facebook video in which he placed the body of an unborn child on an altar while making a last-minute plea for voters to support Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

“A human being has been sacrificed and the altar of God has been desecrated, all for politics,” charged Ken Mechmann, the director of public policy for the New York archdiocese. He described the video as “absolutely appalling,” and said that pro-lifers should repudiate it.

In a follow-up video explaining the video, Father Pavone apologized to those whose “sensibilities were offended,” but argued that the shocking image was needed because of the urgency of defeating Hillary Clinton’s bid for the US presidency. Father Pavone explained that his organization occasionally receives the bodies of aborted children, and gives them a proper burial; in this case, he said, he had offered a funeral Mass for the child after filming the video.

Father Pavone dismissed criticism that the exploitation of an unborn child’s body was inappropriate. “I refuse to be lectured by anybody—in the Church or outside the Church—about how to respect the unborn child,” he said. He did not comment on the complaint that he had desecrated an altar.

 

---

For all current news, visit our News home page.

---

 
Further information:

• Priest slammed for using dead baby as 'political prop' (CNA)
• A Catholic priest put an aborted fetus on the altar in an appeal for Donald Trump (Washington Post
• A Political Desecration (New York archdiocese)