The founder of Priests for Life, Fr. Frank Pavone, has resigned from advisory positions in the reelection campaign of President Donald Trump in obedience to instructions from “competent ecclesiastical authority.”
“I’ve been requested by the competent ecclesiastical authority not to have an official title/position on the advisory boards. So, as a priest in good standing, I’ve followed that request,” Father Pavone told Catholic News Agency (CNA) on Friday.
Father Pavone, who is also a Breitbart News contributor, held various positions with organizations pushing for Trump’s reelection. He was named as co-chair of the Pro-Life Voices for Trump coalition last January and joined the advisory board for Catholics for Trump in April.
The priest also penned a forward for a book titled A Catholic Vote for Trump: The Only Choice in 2020 for Republicans, Democrats, and Independents Alike by Jesse Romero and John McCullough, arguing that President Trump has been proactive in his fight for the values that American Catholics cherish most and is the logical choice for November’s election.
The 2020 presidential election is not so much a clash of personalities as a “clash of worldviews,” Pavone declared, and at the core of the battle is people’s views on the right to life of the unborn.
“Pro-abortion Democrats try to make us focus on what they believe in private about abortion, as an excuse for us to ignore the public policies they create that make it continue,” Pavone wrote. “Let’s not make the same mistake in reverse.”
“The president himself has said that the election is not about him; it’s about you,” he stated. “The attacks launched against him I really attacks on you. They are in attempt to deprive you of the impact of your vote end of your values on our public life.”
Father Pavone has insisted the upcoming elections are about issues rather than personalities.
“We are being asked to choose: either the culture of life or the culture of death, religious freedom or religious oppression, prosperity or poverty, a secure nation or open borders, patriotism or globalism, a free market or socialism, the Constitution or judicial tyranny, law and order or anarchy, and much more,” he said in his forward.
“There has never been a more consequential election in our history,” he concluded. “The options have never been more diametrically opposed, and the choice has never been clearer.”
On Friday, Father Pavone told CNA he had “been asking for permission to serve on these advisory boards” when he was “requested” to resign from them.
The priest did not say which bishop ordered him to withdraw from the Trump campaign but he did say that he is still incardinated in the diocese of Amarillo, though he is in the process of transferring to a different diocese.
Father Pavone said despite his resignation from official roles in the Trump campaign, “nothing has changed in my advocacy for the president, given that the Democrats do indeed pose a grave threat to ‘the rights of the Church’ and ‘the common good,’ a point I’ll be making constantly between now and November 3.”
“Any cleric who doesn’t see that point has his head in the sand or in a Democrat echo chamber,” he said.