Will Clergy at Planned Parenthood Protest Be Held Accountable?

It’s been a week since Trenton Police arrested four people who showed up unannounced at Planned Parenthood arguing that they knew what was best for women’s health, more than the medical professionals at the clinic or the women who needed care.

The Trentonian reported that police arrested a Franciscan friar named Fidelis Moscinski and identified a priest who took part but mysteriously escaped arrest as Father Stephen Imbarrato. This second ordained harasser is an associate with Priests for Life, a group not named in the story, but one well-known in the pro-life movement. Imbarrato served seven days in a Washington, DC, jail earlier this year for trespassing at another clinic.

Never heard of Priests for Life? If you live in New Jersey’s Fourth Congressional District, you should care. Priests for Life, not the smaller group that sent out the press release on the Planned Parenthood arrests, almost certainly is involved in the recent wave of in-your-face incidents, called “Red Rose Rescues,” that began in September 2017. Having erected legal barriers throughout red state America, the pro-lifers are now moving into more progressive states and counties to disrupt women’s healthcare.

This latest episode is especially troubling because for years Trenton was part of the Fourth District, represented by Congressman Chris Smith, who has ties to Priests for Life. Marie Smith, his wife, joined the anti-abortion group in 2010, and she’s used that perch to wreak havoc with global family planning efforts and to set up meetings with the US Department of Health and Human Services, to discuss scrapping rules that require health plans to pay for birth control. A lawsuit the group filed gained attention over the summer, because it provoked a dissent written by now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

It’s no small thing that Imbarrato escaped without charges, because the Trenton arrests come after Imbarrato’s DC jail sentence and a little more than a year since the first “red rose” incident in Alexandria, Va. Gannett’s Herb Jackson reported that Imbarrato, Moscinski, and four others appeared in court November 20, 2017, expecting jail time for a September 15, 2017, protest that followed the same pattern as the one in Trenton: The protesters entered the clinic and handed red roses to women in the waiting room, repeatedly tried to engage them, and then refused to leave after multiple requests. In the Trenton incident, at least one couple left the clinic. Moscinski and several others charged in Trenton were part of a group arrested after an October clinic invasion in Montclair.

Who is really behind these protests? As The Trentonian reported, the Trenton protest was the 11th “red rose” incident since September 2017 and the first at a Planned Parenthood clinic. The official sponsor of the Trenton protest, Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, files with the IRS under a status that means it has receipts of not more than $50,000 a year. That’s not much to cover at least four people to travel to 11 locations in 16 months and pay resulting legal costs. Jackson’s story from the 2017 court hearing mentions only Priests for Life, not the Citizens’ group. Given Imbarrato’s role, the connection seems clear. Priests for Life also has far greater resources; the group raised more than $13 million in 2017—even though Priests for Life somehow managed to finish the year with a $93,000 deficit.

And where is our Congressman in all this? Chris Smith is thoroughly on board with Priests for Life—during a stretch years ago when the its leader, Father Frank Pavone, was in hot water with supervising bishops and the IRS, Smith got up on the floor of the House of Representatives and sang the group’s praises. So, Smith seemingly has no problem when Imbarrato disrupts women’s health appointments and refuses to leave clinics, but he complains bitterly when his own constituents picket his office to complain that they can’t ask him a question, because he won’t hold a town hall meeting.

For elected officials and those in law enforcement, these incidents raise several issues:

First, Trenton officials must ask why Imbarrato was not arrested with the others. I strongly urge the City Council to hold a hearing on this incident and report the findings to the public.

Second, as much as the law allows, prosecutors and judges must stop letting these criminals get away with suspended fines. Videos of arrests are used as propaganda by the pro-life movement to raise money to further erode women’s rights, and if there is no real punishment, these clergy get to have their cake and eat it, too! For our legislators, if the laws limit the ability of judges to sentence these priests to jail, then we need new laws. If coordination with a larger outside entity can be shown, then laws that allow fines or civil damages against that organization must be considered.

Third, as these protesters take their show on the road, judges in state courts must weigh their patterns of behavior, not just the individual incident in their jurisdictions. Jackson’s story points out that the prosecutor in Alexandria specifically cited Moscinski’s prior arrests in asking for jail time, but her pleas were ignored. The judge suspended the $500 fine for a year and said it would be dismissed if the defendants did not commit another crime and stayed away from the clinic. It’s unclear from the news account if the judge—or the Virginia prosecutor—has any power to take further action against Moscinski or Imbarrato based on their behavior in New Jersey. The Trenton City Council must ask: did Imbarrato’s arrests in Virginia and the District of Columbia come up in discussions about whether he would be arrested in our state capital?

Finally, Imbarrato’s presence at the Planned Parenthood incident further compels the NJ Division of Consumer Affairs to open an investigation into Priest for Life’s fund-raising practices in our state. As I write this, our state’s online registry shows the group is “non-complaint” with charitable registration requirements and its last filing appears to have been made nearly three years ago.

As a Catholic, I’ve had enough. Haven’t we learned the hard way what happens when priests feel they are beyond the reach of the law?