FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Leslie Palma
917-639-7039
TITUSVILLE, FL -- At 52 million, Catholics remain the largest religious group in the U.S. According to the Washington Post, President-elect Donald Trump won the national Catholic vote 56% to 41% - a 10-point jump over 2020.
During the run-up to the Nov. 5 election, Priests for Life was instrumental in educating and activating Catholic voters, through its ProLifeVote.com project. Priests for Life, in fact, has been a leading Catholic political force for the last 25 years, and became such a threat to left-leaning Church leaders that Pope Francis kicked its leader, Frank Pavone, out of the priesthood in 2022.
Nevertheless, the board and supporters of Priests for Life have ensured that Pavone continues to lead the organization full-time as its national director to help achieve victories like we now have.
Among the many Catholic initiatives the group took during this cycle was to collaborate with Dr. Ralph Reed and the Faith and Freedom Coalition to have an increased presence of Catholic clergy at the Road to Majority Conference in June, under the banner of Catholics for Faith and Freedom.
The team of Priests for Life traveled tirelessly to other conferences, churches, and pro-life events, especially in the key states, and was a leading force in fighting the abortion ballot measures that voters faced in 10 states.
Moreover, online training seminars for clergy and laity, as well as daily broadcasting and national prayer campaigns, equipped Catholic priests and their congregations to vote in a concerned and active way. Pavone was also invited by the Republican National Committee to lead a special series of prayer events for Catholic delegates at the party’s convention this past summer.
Hundreds of thousands of pieces of literature were distributed, and Priests for Life also organized strategic meetings with other pro-life leaders throughout the election cycle to equip them to mobilize their members for voting. Volunteers were recruited for door-knocking and phone banking, and heavy emphasis was given to early voting – a theme Priests for Life has been pressing for two decades.
Pavone, along with Priests for Life Executive Director Janet Morana, have served on Catholic advisory boards for Republican presidential campaigns – including for President Trump -- since 2000.
“We are delighted but not surprised at the large jump in Catholic support that President Trump saw this year,” Frank Pavone said. “It’s primarily a reflection of the direction the whole electorate took, concerned as they rightly were with the way Democrats were destroying America, her border, security, reputation, election integrity, courts, and freedoms. Abortion extremism of the Democrat Party played a role as well, as did the weaponization of the Biden/Harris Justice Department against peaceful Catholic and pro-life citizens.
“We ourselves were targets in the past of the Obama-Biden HHS Mandate, and our case was one of those that reached the Supreme Court as we refused to provide coverage for abortion in our health insurance plan. It was President Trump’s first administration that saved us – and many other groups – from that.
“As for Church leaders and many Catholic organizations, we were disappointed that the bulk of the messaging, before and after the election, was more about process than about substance. Exhortations to be ‘civil’ and ‘respectful’ in politics overshadowed the obvious concerns of citizens that the Democrat Party was attacking Catholic values and censoring our freedom to defend them. And messages of gratitude after the election focused on our ability to choose our leaders rather than gratitude for the leaders we actually chose. That needs to change. Whether in the Church or in politics, people prefer clear messaging over evasion.”
For more information, visit www.ProLifeVote.com.
“Now it is crucially important to continue our prayers and outspoken advocacy for President Trump, because his enemies will try to do everything possible to interfere with the next two phases of this transition, namely, the vote of the electors and the certification by Congress. His victory in the popular vote takes away a key tool that the Democrats would have used to undermine this election. So let us all be loud and clear and vigilant in our support over these next three months.”