L'Affaire Pavone

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Sep 16, 2011

I don’t profess to know who is right and who is wrong with respect to the serious concerns expressed by Bishop Patrick Zurek over Priests for Life founder Fr. Frank Pavone’s handling of his apostolic affairs (see CWN coverage). The claims and counter-claims are sufficiently at odds that only time and further investigation are going to reveal the truth. But as proponents of Fr. Pavone rush to man the barricades, I would like to offer several principles which should serve as a guide to situations exactly like this one.

1. Suffering and Obedience are Joined at the Hip: Man is fallen, and both human perceptions and human virtue are exceedingly fallible. For this reason, ecclesiastical obedience always includes a measure of suffering: the perceptions and virtues of the one in authority will be different (whether superior or inferior) to the one in obedience. Inescapably, the proper response to suffering in this context is to obey. As the lives of innumerable saints reveal, it is not always the weakness or obtuseness of the one under obedience which causes the conflict. But the saints also demonstrate that the key to fruitfulness in these situations is to…obey.
2. Diocese Jumping is a Two-Edged Sword: Obedience never precludes the proper use of the canonical procedures the Church prescribes for the resolution of disagreements and conflicts. In various situations, it is also possible for a priest to exchange one ordinary for another (to change dioceses). Given the agreement of both bishops, a priest may be released from one diocese and incardinated in another. But when this is done because of a disagreement with the first bishop, it raises a legitimate concern. When it happens more than once, it raises a huge red warning flag. For a priest to get himself passed around like a hot potato suggests serious problems…with the priest.

3. Personal Apostolic Commitments Don’t Trump a Vocation: This is an area in which I fault Fr. Pavone’s public statements regardless of the nature of his bishop’s concerns. Let me take a layman’s case as an example. I may vow in the presence of God and the Holy Angels that I am going to dedicate myself to disseminating the Catholic Faith. I may visit the Pope at the Vatican and tell him of my sturdy resolve. But if my wife tells me I’m neglecting my children, I had better adjust my priorities in a hurry. My personal and private priorities and commitments pale into insignificance.

   You’ve heard the expression, “Don’t quit your day job.” A vocation trumps particular apostolic interests. In exactly the same way, Fr. Pavone’s insistence that he vowed in the presence of a cardinal to do pro-life work for the rest of this life ought to matter not a whit to anybody, including himself, unless he has the necessary Vatican approval and dispensation from his ordinary role in the Church—not when it comes to his vocational response to the legitimate authority of his bishop.

Again, with respect to the concerns about the handling of Fr. Pavone’s apostolic affairs, I have no idea who is right and who is wrong. But all Catholics ought to adhere relentlessly to the points I’ve raised above, and particularly the third principle. The more Fr. Frank Pavone insists on the inviolability of his personal apostolic commitment to the pro-life cause, however noble a commitment that may be, the more he will put himself in the wrong. And this is not just a matter of principle but a matter of the economy of salvation, the economy of grace.

When any of us insists on our own apostolic work against the judgment of the Church, we squeeze the fire hose of Divine grace down to a few ineffectual drips. Let Fr. Pavone pursue the legitimate means available to resolve the dispute between himself and his bishop. But let him do so quietly, without rallying the troops in favor of his own indispensability, his own necessity for a cause. Let him demand that the picketers go home, and let him ask for prayers instead, prayers that both his bishop and himself will accurately discern God’s will.

Now it may be that Fr. Pavone will suffer unjustly for taking this course. As I said, I do not know who is right in the questions that have been raised. But at least such a response will release a roaring cataract of grace into the Church. This is true for all of us, and our heroes are no different. The key is to do God’s will, not our own. It is a great gift to have God’s will made clear to us by authority, a gift that Catholics should be the first to recognize and treasure.

In l’affaire Pavone, then, let us pray that all parties will behave as if they treasure the Church, not only in the abstract, but in the concrete. Let us be patient. Let us not preempt God’s will. Let us instead remember Our Lord’s words to the woman at the well, words which apply as much to the Church as to Himself, and to Peter the Rock, and to the bishops in union with Peter: “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water” (Jn 4:10).