Fox News host Laura Ingraham interviewed a defrocked priest and outspoken critic of abortion who once placed the aborted remains of a fetus on an altar and streamed it on the internet.
Ingraham omitted this fact during a friendly interview.
The Catholic Church issued a statement saying that Frank Pavone “was found guilty in canonical proceedings of blasphemous communications on social media, and of persistent disobedience of the lawful instructions of his diocesan bishop.”
The letter did not cite any specific examples that led to Pavone’s laicization.
Conservatives have seized upon Pavone’s outspoke advocacy for former President Donald Trump and speculated that is why the Vatican reached the decision it did.
However, on Monday’s The Ingraham Angle, Pavone stated the Church has been admonishing him for more than 20 years, well before Trump was a serious political figure.
Days before the 2016 election, Pavone live-streamed himself placing an aborted fetus on an altar. In a post accompanying the video, Pavone urged those watching to vote for Trump because Hillary Clinton would “let the child-killing continue.” if elected. Pavone claimed the fetus was given to him by a pathologist to be buried.
Pavone’s archdiocese scolded him in a statement saying his actions were “against the dignity of human life and is a desecration of the altar.”
“This is actually the culmination of 21 years of abuse by Church authorities to me into my ministry despite the fact that we help the Vatican,” Pavone told Ingraham. “We help the secretary of state with international pro-life issues. We run the largest ministry for healing after abortion, for which Pope Francis has personally encouraged me to keep going on it.”
Pavone belongs to an organization called Priests for Life, whose website contains a gallery of photos of aborted fetuses. He told Ingraham he is a victim of “cancel culture.”
“Why are they doing this?” he continued. “A lot of it obviously is connected with the cancel culture that comes against supporters of President Trump and critics of the Democrat party And we’re only going to get louder about it. We’re not going to be silenced.”
Ingraham noted that the Church once asked Pavone to become a parish priest but he refused to do so.
“Absolutely,” he responded. “That’s how this started.”
“But as a priest, Father Pavone, you have to go where the Church tells you to go, correct?” Ingraham replied, before moving on. “We don’t want to get into all the minutiae because it’s confusing. I gotta you ask one other question, though, because you say you want to appeal this. But they say there is no appeal process for what just happened. So, what do you do?”
Pavone answered by acknowledging the pope is the final authority, but change can still happen.
“The pope himself can reverse it, the next pope can reverse it,” he said. “And I am appealing to the people of God to continue working with us and showing support for this work of saving lives and healing hearts.”
Watch above via Fox News.
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