Courtney McGrailA prominent pro-life campaigning priest in the United States is facing a Church investigation after he posed with an aborted infant lying on an altar in a video appeal for his supporters to vote for the presidency of Donald Trump.
Fr Frank Pavone, the head of the Priests for Life group, faced harsh criticism for his action during a 44-minute video appeal for Donald Trump to secure the presidency to thwart the pro-abortion candidate Hillary Clinton.
Now, Bishop Patrick Zurek of the Diocese of Amarillo, Texas, where Fr Pavone is based, has announced the opening of an official Church investigation into the matter.
In a statement on the incident, Bishop Zurek denounced Fr Pavone’s actions as “against the dignity of human life and is a desecration of the altar. We believe that no one who is pro-life can exploit a human body for any reason, especially the body of a foetus.”
Expressing regret on behalf of the diocese for “the offense and outrage caused by the video for the faithful and the community at large”, he stressed that it “is not consistent with the beliefs of the Catholic Church”.
Bishop Zurek’s sense of revulsion was shared by others, including Ed Mechmann, a spokesperson for Fr Pavone’s former Archdiocese of New York, who said: “A human being has been sacrificed and the altar of God has been desecrated, all for politics.
“Everyone who respects the dignity of every human person should reject and disavow this atrocity.”