FATHER FRANK PAVONE
LEADING THE FIGHT FOR LIFE SINCE 1993
Pro-life Leader FRANK PAVONE is one of the most prominent pro-life leaders in the world. A native New Yorker, he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1988 by Cardinal John O’Connor, and has dedicated his entire life and ministry to ending abortion.
In 1993 he requested permission to serve as the national director of Priests for Life, which, under his leadership, has become the one of the nation’s largest organizations focused on ending abortion. He is also the president of the National Pro-life Religious Council, and the national pastoral director of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign and of Rachel’s Vineyard, the world’s largest ministry of healing after abortion. He is also President of ProLife Vote.
He travels throughout the country, preaching and teaching against abortion. He broadcasts daily to hundreds of thousands of people via EndAbortion.TV, Priests for Life’s streaming television channel. Over the past three decades, Pavone has achieved many notable pro- life accomplishments. For example, Mother Teresa asked him to speak in India on the life issues. The Vatican appointed him to the Pontifical Academy for Life and to the Pontifical Council for the Family to help coordinate the pro-life activities of the Catholic Church.
Members of Congress have invited him to address the pro-life caucus and to preach at prayer services. He served on the pro-life and Catholic advisory boards of President Trump’s 2016 and 2020 election campaigns and in 2020 was national co-chair of Pro-life Voices for Trump.
He received the “Proudly Pro-life Award” by the National Right to Life Committee and numerous other pro-life awards and honorary doctorates. He is the author of four books, Ending Abortion, Not Just Fighting It; Pro-life Reflections for Every Day; Abolishing Abortion, and Proclaiming the Message of Life. Norma McCorvey, the “Jane Roe” of the Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade abortion decision, called Pavone “the catalyst that brought me into the Catholic Church.” His efforts have been recognized as a key factor in the reversal of Roe vs. Wade and his work has been praised by presidents, popes, and countless citizens. Some Church leaders, however, have tried to cancel him and in 2022 convinced Pope Francis to dismiss him from the priesthood. He continues, however, in his full-time pro-life leadership role with the unanimous support of the ministries he leads and is confident his priesthood will be fully reinstated.
Why Is There So Much Good?
FATHER FRANK PAVONE
It is quite understandable that many people over the ages have doubted God’s existence, or at least struggled to reconcile their belief in God, with the undeniable presence of so much evil in the world. Good people suffer; senseless violence rages, the rights of the vulnerable are trampled, and countless people are never brought to justice.
Yet there is a flip side to this coin, the simple question: Why is there so much good in the world? Where does beauty come from? What is the source of so much love, service and self-sacrifice? We often find ourselves amazed at nature, the unique shapes of individual snowflakes, the sheer variety and intricate designs of flowers, or the vastness and overpowering beauty of galaxies farther from us than the mind can fathom.
But beyond these wonders of nature – which no human being claims to have created – there are realities even deeper and more beautiful. Think, for example, of your most intimate relationship of love and trust – your anticipation of seeing that person and your joy in their presence.
Or just think of the joy you have from your favorite pet – a dog, perhaps, who faithfully does the happy dance whenever you return.
And what about acts of virtue and self-sacrifice. How far parents go to provide for, protect, and make their children happy?
What about the perseverance that marks the one who studies and practices for years to be a surgeon? Or what of the classical pianist, whose untold hours of practice result in an auditorium of people rising to their feet with shouts of “bravo!” and tears flowing from their eyes?
What about Olympic athletes? Do we not gaze in wonder, with our mouths open and our hearts uplifted, at what they can do with their bodies as they flip through the air or figure skate in ways that transcend words? What about poets who wrote the world’s most moving verses, and composers who created the world’s most moving music?
What about the self-sacrifice shown by first responders, or courageous soldiers in war?
The question is simple. Where does all this come from? All this love, all this virtue, all this creativity, all this beauty, all this good? From where does freedom come and all the noble aspirations of the human heart?
And from where do you come, when 500 years ago you could not ask for or earn your own existence? What were the chances?
Evil is not evil without good. You can’t suffer from the violent and unexpected death of a child unless first there were the marvel of life and beautiful gift of love that the parent-child relationship embodies. There is no loss if at first we did not possess.
Evil is precisely the lack of good, and we don’t know evil unless we know good first.
God is not silent. God’s existence and love is seen all around us, in everything that is good.