Steve and Natalie are joined by Father Frank Pavone, Steve Cortez, and Ben Harnwell at Turning Point USA's AmericaFest in Phoenix, Arizona. They discuss the latest in the anti-abortion and anti-RNC hysteria, and what it means for the future of the conservative movement.
00:03:52.000You were the guy in the vineyard on the cloudy days when it looked like it was a forgotten issue.
00:03:57.000There was no way it could be reversed.
00:03:59.000You had really one of the biggest political victories in American history just a couple of months ago at the Supreme Court.
00:04:06.000Tell us what happened over the last 24, 48 hours.
00:04:09.000How did the Pope come in and say, hey, you're no longer a priest?
00:04:15.000Well, Steve, this is the culmination of something that's been going on for 21 of the 40 some odd years that I've been working in pro-life leadership.
00:04:24.000There are some in the church that don't like what we do.
00:04:27.000They don't like that we focus on abortion as the main issue.
00:05:15.000Then they tried to discredit the organization.
00:05:17.000They did the usual things, all financial questions and whatnot.
00:05:20.000That didn't work because we've always had clean audits and we publicized them.
00:05:24.000So then they said, well, the only thing left to cancel this guy is to take away his priesthood itself.
00:05:29.000So Patrick Zurich, Bishop of Amarillo, he deserves some pushback on this.
00:05:35.000He's been the ringleader and they've been trying to complain, but it's just the constant complaint machine.
00:05:42.000Despite the fact that we're doing work that so many of our viewers support, some of these bishops just don't want to hear any of it.
00:05:49.000And so they weaponize the procedures within the church, just like we see the Democrats weaponizing procedures within the government to sideline those they hate.
00:06:00.000Let me ask you an uncomfortable question.
00:06:03.000My question is because I thought life was a central tenet of the Christian faith and the underpinnings of the Judeo-Christian West and your focus really that your maniacal focus, which had to happen in order to reverse the slaughter of the innocence.
00:06:20.000How could that not be a top priority for the hierarchy of the church?
00:06:25.000And was this effort to remove you basically related to Roe v. Wade being reversed?
00:06:31.000And all of a sudden you became in the in the rest of the right to life crew became an uncomfortable, you know, adjunct.
00:06:39.000All of a sudden the Democratic left was going to make that a major campaign issue in twenty twenty two.
00:06:46.000And the way to make you go away is take out the leader of this movement, Father Frank Pavone.
00:06:51.000It's it's it's partially that, you know, Steve, I think it's related more to the way that Roe v. Wade got reversed, which, as you know, well, you and I know.
00:06:59.000And so many who, you know, worked with President Trump, if it weren't for his election, if it weren't for his steadfastness in getting those three Supreme Court justices on the bench, this would not have happened.
00:07:12.000And he told us that in 2016, he said, if I get to appoint two or three justices, Roe v. Wade will be reversed automatically because these justices are going to respect the Constitution.
00:07:22.000They these some of these bishops have been angry at me for my support of Donald J. Trump and for the fact that I told them all the way up to the pope himself.
00:07:31.000I told them I will not back away from supporting the most pro-life president of the United States.
00:07:36.000That's got them enraged. They know I'm going to continue to support Trump and then the policies that all of us believe in in the MAGA movement.
00:07:45.000And so that really is the crux of the matter here.
00:07:49.000Have you been walk us through where you confront it before about Trump?
00:07:55.000Did they tell you to back off? Because one of the things they put out was blasphemous social media posting.
00:08:00.000Is it because you came on War Room because the fact that you supported Trump?
00:08:05.000There's the support for Trump. They challenged me about that along the way, several points along the way.
00:08:11.000You know, both in the in both campaigns, I was on the advisory boards for Catholic issues and for pro-life issues.
00:08:17.000And in the second campaign, they told me, oh, you can't have an official title.
00:08:21.000You know, I was national co-chair of pro-life voices for Trump very proudly.
00:08:25.000And so the Vatican said, oh, no, you can't. Priests can't do that.
00:08:29.000So I said, OK, you know, the campaign is fine with that.
00:08:31.000They don't you know, I don't have to have an official title.
00:08:34.000But then they were very happy, you know, that that I made that change.
00:08:38.000But then when I continued supporting the president and his policies, then they complained again.
00:08:43.000I said, well, why don't you be honest with me? It's not about having a title.
00:08:46.000It's not about being on a committee. It's about you don't want us supporting this this these policies and this and this president.
00:08:53.000So they're not honest, Steve. They're not honest with me. They're not straightforward.
00:08:57.000They behave like little children. And that's why, you know, I want to say to our viewers, you know, if the work is worthy of support, we got to move forward together.
00:09:06.000And let's just keep doing it. I'm going to keep doing it. My board and my staff are behind me a thousand percent.
00:09:12.000We're not going to change and we're going to keep saving lives, healing wounds and electing pro-life candidates.
00:09:19.000When you're in conversation or in dialogue before this, before they stepped in and removed you from the priesthood, did you ever bring up the fact that Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and I think Dick Durbin and Joe Biden profess Catholics support?
00:09:37.000I mean, the most aggressive form of abortion, plus a whole other raft of really anti-Judeo-Christian West values that they try to jam into the schools every day.
00:09:50.200Did that conversation ever come up with these bishops and with the Vatican?
00:09:54.640Yes, yes. And and I know, you know, it's not a dialogue the way that we would understand it.
00:10:01.380And that's the sad thing about this. The way they've been treating me has been a one sided narrative.
00:10:06.420I bring these things up. In fact, I've written an open letter to several open letters to the U.S. bishops about the fact that we've got to be more vocal regarding Biden, Pelosi and their kind of fake Catholics.
00:10:19.660And I get no response. I try to initiate a dialogue. I put it out there publicly.
00:10:25.740The voters respond. The folks that are watching us respond.
00:10:30.420But the bishops don't respond. And I think that part of our pushback here has to say has to be, you know, each person communicating with the bishop in their own diocese and saying, listen, you guys have to get on board here.
00:10:42.100We're on board. We're with Father Frank and the people that are pointing out these these these problems.
00:10:49.180Why don't you get on board with us? And so, Steve, it's been a very one sided one sided narrative.
00:10:56.380What is their problem with President Trump's not the most churchy individual, he'd be the first to admit, but he's had the back of the basic values of our civilization and has taken tough action to support that, particularly the basic tenets of the Catholic Church.
00:11:13.680What is their problem with what is specifically their problem with Trump as you see it?
00:11:17.980As I see it, Steve, the problem is their loyalty to their Democrat friends.
00:11:24.960They've got the bishops are in tight with a lot of the key Democrat leaders.
00:11:29.000And, you know, they help them out on certain social programs that are important to the church.
00:11:34.040That's fine. But that doesn't justify giving them a free pass when it comes to abortion.
00:11:39.480And I think they just don't want to offend their friends.
00:11:42.460It's as simple as that. There's Democrat loyalty there.
00:11:44.800But I pointed out to these bishops, you know, the church wouldn't be wouldn't have the freedom that we have today to do what we're doing, including in those other realms, you know, serving the poor and so forth.
00:11:55.900If it weren't for President Trump's defense of religious liberty, he's done more for the freedom of the church than anybody.
00:12:01.420And that includes the, you know, the very existence of ministries like mine.
00:12:05.240And it's it's thanks to his steadfast defense of religious freedom.
00:12:09.920So I think the bishops owe it to themselves and to him to take account of what he's done for the church and to stop the beings, you know, more loyal to the Democrats than to their own church.
00:12:23.420What they did to you, it was so dramatic, so bold and so absolutely dead, just wrong.
00:12:28.960Do you think this leads? Do you think this is the beginning shot of a real schism in the church?
00:12:32.440It could be. It could be. I don't want that to happen.
00:12:37.260In fact, Steve, there's been the pope himself has been advised that there is a better solution to the, you know, Father Frank problem.
00:12:46.020And that is, you know, put me under a different bishop.
00:12:48.840And in fact, the Vatican authorized that three years ago.
00:12:52.060Like I said, this has been a long story.
00:12:53.420People can read the whole detail of it at fatherfrankpavone.com.
00:12:57.120I got the documentation. I got the letters.
00:13:00.300I'm just going to expose the whole thing.
00:13:02.280But three years ago, the Vatican said, hey, just, you know, Father, you can get away from Bishop Zurich, who's been causing all this trouble, and go under a more favorable bishop.
00:13:11.120And there are other favorable bishops willing to receive me.
00:16:21.340Father Pavone, walk us through what the war and posse needs to do, what's your next steps, how you can be supported.
00:16:27.380Because I've talked to hundreds of pretty prominent people in this movement in the last 24 hours, and they are of belief that this is a throwdown by the Pope and it's going to lead to a schism.
00:16:39.560And that this is going to be, you know, this is only the opening salvo of something that's going to get very nasty and that people are not going to back down on this all because they've seen the corruption in the church.
00:16:52.240I'm going to talk to Natalie here in a minute about the CCP and McCarrick.
00:16:55.740Steve Cortez has some thoughts on that.
00:16:57.360So this is, there are literally millions of people that have your back.
00:18:21.000Well, you know, first, it's fascinating, I think, just during this interview to see how cheerful Father Frank is, even while he is being persecuted, certainly, in my view.
00:18:32.100And he has been a warrior who has paved the way spiritually for the political warrior, pro-life warrior, who was Donald Trump, who achieved something that for decades was thought to be hopeless.
00:18:43.240And that is overturning of Roe v. Wade, attacking this culture of death so that we can start to rebuild a culture of life in this country.
00:18:51.080A couple of points I would make to the audience.
00:18:53.060One is compare and contrast the treatment of Father Pavone by the U.S. bishops with very political leftist priests.
00:19:01.260And let me give you a couple of examples.
00:19:03.020Father James Martin, who is a very prominent Jesuit, he is the editor-in-chief of their flagship publication, America Magazine.
00:19:10.080He regularly spews not just leftist political leanings, but ideas that are totally contrary to Catholic doctrine.
00:19:16.860And yet he faces no discipline at all.
00:19:18.540As a matter of fact, quite the opposite.
00:19:19.920He really gets amplification, both from Rome as well as from U.S. bishops.
00:19:24.480And another example might not be as widely known in Chicago is Father Michael Flager, who is an incredibly radical leftist, I would say even Marxist activist.
00:19:34.380Somebody who quite recently, in his Catholic church in Chicago, invited Louis Farrakhan, that merchant of hate, in to speak from the Catholic pulpit.
00:19:43.380And yet he is a priest in good standing.
00:19:45.380And so the lesson here, I think the takeaway from the liberal bishops, unfortunately, is you can be very political as a priest as long as it's leftist.
00:19:53.980What you can't be is a political conservative priest like Father Pavone.
00:19:58.060And here's what I would also like to say to Steve is why this matters to America broadly, because there might be folks out there in the audience who say, oh, I'm an evangelical or I'm not a believer at all.
00:20:05.680This is sort of inside baseball, Catholicism doesn't matter to us.
00:20:08.940And I would just try to persuade the audience how much it does matter to the country.
00:20:14.060The Catholic church is by far the largest denomination in the United States.
00:20:17.520And I would also submit to you that this country's turn towards secular humanism largely flowed out of the confusion that followed Vatican II.
00:20:26.520So, in other words, what happened in Rome had enormous fallout for the United States.
00:20:31.040It mattered for our culture, our politics, everything.
00:20:33.460Even if you've never darkened the door of a Catholic church, believe me, this matters greatly to you.
00:20:40.760You wrote a couple of great columns on this Marriage Equality Act.
00:20:43.260Father Martin and others in the Catholic hierarchy didn't fight this tooth and nail.
00:20:47.720Because you were one of the few people who came out and said, hey, this is an attack on the Christian religion.
00:20:52.820This is an attack on the fundamentals of the Judeo-Christian faith.
00:20:57.360Walk us through that, because you didn't see these guys fighting the Marriage Equality Act.
00:21:02.140No, the deafening silence, you know, unfortunately, there were a few brave ones out there.
00:21:06.060Cardinal Dolan, who's somebody who's not considered to be right-wing at all, the Archbishop of New York City, he thankfully did speak out very powerfully against his act.
00:21:13.900But in general, yes, it got very little pushback from the Catholic hierarchy.
00:21:18.260And unfortunately, that Catholic hierarchy, here's the reality.
00:21:20.960Young Catholic priests right now tend to be very orthodox in their religiosity, and they tend to be very conservative when it comes to politics.
00:21:27.800But a lot of these bishops are the people who, their formative years were exactly what I was talking about before,
00:21:32.820in the confusion in the wake of Vatican II in the 60s and 70s, and they now occupy the positions of power in the American Catholic Church.
00:21:40.120And they didn't overwhelmingly push back against this so-called Respect for Marriage Act, which actually had nothing to do with gay marriage,
00:21:47.940which is actually the law of the land and available everywhere in the United States.
00:21:51.780What it really involved was a very brazen weapon that can be used by the federal government to attack any organization,
00:21:59.740and specifically Christian organizations, who believe that marriage is what it has always been,
00:22:05.720ordained by God, a sacred covenant union of one man and one woman.
00:22:10.880There is now a legal weapon to go after those of us who believe in that.
00:22:14.720And believe me, this so-called Respect for Marriage Act is going to lead to a knock on the rectory door of churches
00:22:21.180that do not want to refuse to perform same-sex marriages.