I realize that this situation has been spun as “Bishop Zurek vs. the Pro-Life Movement.” However, we do not need to attribute ill-will to anyone.
It is not an attack on Fr. Pavone or the pro-life movement (which is far larger than one man) to suggest that either he or someone he trusted could have made errors in accounting. By his own choice, he is under the authority of the Bishop of Amarillo, and looking into the possibility of financial error is the Bishop’s job.
Now the situation is closed, any necessary changes in procedures have been made. I don’t understand why this is not considered good news, the system working as it should.
It is good news.This is a long story and began in New York.Texas took him under their wing and he intended to build a seminary there.The Bishop friend died-new Bishop was not happy hence the transfer of Father and the Vatican contacted.Now he has to answer to the New York Bishop and we start all over again:)
Certainly, where an organization raises big money, someone else would like to have it. That may be in play here, but I doubt any bishop to be actually against the proLife movement itself.
Barrels of ink was spilled on the contrast between the bishop’s harsh tone in his letter to the USCCB,
against Pavone, and his punitive actions toward Pavone. OTH, obedience to the bishop kept Pavone silenced entirely, and without complaint he spent the year in exile cheerfully and obediently.
How else was this going to look, in the media? Father Pavone knew exactly how it would look, I suspect. He was right, and he came out all the better for his obedience and exile. I think nothing quite went the bishop’s way. Pavone requested a return to the NY organization early on. In the end, that is what he got, because Bishop Zurich’s management style had made a big deal out of it all the way to Rome.
As for the PFL financial complaint Bishop Zurich made, I never heard the results of that final audit, or that it turned out to amount to anything much.
It’s great news!
The Bishop was just doing his job and making sure that things were on the up and up. Father Pavone did what he was supposed to do and he was obedient to the Bishop. Everybody did the right thing and it was resolved.
It is a very happy ending indeed. It couldn’t have happened at a better time in that the March For Life is right around the corner.