An Open Letter to Fr. Frank Pavone’s Superiors

Last updated on: January 18, 2017 at 5:21 pm by Kate Cousino

An Open Letter to Fr. Frank Pavone’s Superiors 2017-01-18T17:21:36-04:00 Kate Cousino

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This is the text of a letter I sent via electronic submission form to the Bishop of Amarillo, TX, yesterday afternoon. I have made no edits to it for public consumption.

Dear Bishop Zurek,

It came to my attention today that Fr. Pavone of Priests for Life falls under your jurisdiction. I am writing to express my horror at his recent use of human remains in a crass political stunt (I note that he also made an explicit political endorsement, which I believe is problematic for both the diocese and his organization for legal/tax reasons).

I am pro-life. I have been since I was child. I donate to pro-life organizations and my values affect my political and personal decisions. I believe that respect for life is grounded in respect for the human person, which our faith teaches us must be extended even to human remains, since we are embodied souls and believe in a bodily resurrection.

Even secular society recognizes the importance of respectful treatment of human remains. There are regulations on how cadavers donated to medical science are handled and treated by lab techs, med students, and others. Undertakers are trained to treat bodies with dignity even when there is no one in the room to know. The human body is not an object for use. As the Catechism says: CCC 2300 The bodies of the dead must be treated with respect and charity, in faith and hope of the Resurrection.

Fr. Pavone took a body which was entrusted to him for burial and delayed proper burial in order to use the child–on an altar!–as a prop for a political video message. He did not place the child in a casket. He did not place the child before the altar, as one might while awaiting funeral rites or burial. He did not clothe, shroud, or discernibly tend to the body. He put the body on the altar naked and uncovered. He put the body of a dead, naked child on the altar, in what appears to be a grotesque mockery of the Eucharist. I was told many times as a child that the altar is only to be used sacramentally, never as a prop or piece of furniture. Fr. Pavone seems to have forgotten this. He used the altar, and the body of a child, in order to create political propaganda. His ends are unimportant when the means by which he pursues them are so depraved.

I respectfully urge you to discipline Fr. Pavone. His actions need to be clearly condemned by pro-lifers and Catholics together. This cannot be the face of the pro-life movement. No movement for life can be successful if it loses the foundational principle that each person exists for their own sake, as the beloved children of the God who created them–not to be used as objects by others for any purpose.

Kate Cousino

You can find phone contact information for the diocese of Amarillo here, or submit a letter to the department of your choice (including the bishop) here.

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