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How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? Tehelim |
Paul Chaim Benedicta Schenck (born in 1958 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey) is an ordained Catholic priest who is a pro-life activist along with his twin brother, Robert Schenck. They are both active in ministries in Washington, D.C.as well as throughout the United States and other countries.
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The identical twins Robert and Paul Schenck were raised in a Jewish home in western New York (Grand Island). They both attended colleges near Rochester, New York. Paul was baptized as a non-Catholic Christian when he was 16 years old. Paul and his brother each married in 1977 and lived and worked in the Town of Tonawanda, New York until Robert left in 1976 (he returned in 1982)and Paul in 1994.
Paul founded the New Covenant Tabernacle [1] Church in Tonawanda, New York, in 1982, after joining the Reformed Episcopal Church in 1994 he was vicar of a mission in Virginia Beach and rector of a parish in Catonsville, Maryland. Paul was the executive vice president of the American Center for Law & Justice from 1994 to 1997. Robert later joined the Evangelical Alliance and transferred his ordination to the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Schenck was received into the Catholic Church in 2004. He was ordained a Catholic priest on June 12, 2010, under the Pastoral Provision, which allows married former clergy of the Anglican tradition to be ordained without the requirement for celibacy.
The brothers were involved with the founding of Operation Rescue. In 1992, they helped organize the "Spring of Life" in Buffalo in an effort to focus its public demonstrations on abortion providers and on efforts to close abortion clinics. Hundreds of pro-life activists, most of them from western New York, were arrested for blockading clinics. Schenck's image appeared on the cover of Life magazine. Robert was photographed holding an aborted 20-week-old fetus in his hands.
Robert was arrested for showing Bill Clinton an aborted fetus during the 1992 Democratic National Convention in New York City.
Schenck was accused and convicted of obstruction of a federal order for denying that he borrowed his twin brother's necktie during a demonstration in front of a post office behind which was an abortion clinic. The charge was part of a larger case against the Schencks for distributing Bibles, tracts, and pro-life literature on the public sidewalk near the post office. Robert was released from the case, but Schenck was sentenced to 30 days in a federal prison.
Until about 1994, the brothers had worked together, primarily in Buffalo, but then Schenck moved to Virginia Beach and joined the ACLJ, the public-interest law firm headed by Keith Fournier, a Catholic deacon, and Jay Sekulow, a Jewish Christian Constitutional lawyer. Schenck joined the Reformed Episcopal Church and was made the chaplain of Regent University School of Law. Robert moved to Washington, D.C., where he founded Faith and Action.
In Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network of Western New York, Schenck's challenge to a court order went to the Supreme Court in 1996. The case was to decide details about restraining orders, in particular for protesters around abortion clinics. The Court held that the injunction provisions imposing "fixed buffer zone" limitations were constitutional, but the provisions imposing "floating buffer zones" violated the First Amendment. The Court voted 8-1 in Schenck's favor striking down the floating zones. The Court used that case to strike down similar restrictions in Colorado, Arizona and California.
On December 24, 1996, Robert again encountered Clinton at the Washington National Cathedral and, in reference to Clinton's veto of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, said "God will hold you to account, Mr. President." Robert was detained by the Secret Service on suspicion of threatening the President of the United States.
In 1995, Schenck left the Assemblies of God denomination to become a minister in the Reformed Episcopal Church. Besides his studies at Elim Bible Institute, he graduated from Luther Rice University (with a B.A. biblical studies), was granted the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters by the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in Merrimack, New Hampshire, (and in Rome) was granted the Graduate Catechetical Diploma by The Most Rev. Paul Laverde, the Bishop of Arlington, Virginia. Subsequently Schenck studied liturgical theology at the Catholic University of America and received the Master of Religious Studies, then Master of Arts in Theology from Catholic Distance University, summa cum laude. In 2007, he received the Master Certificate in Executive Leadership and Management from the University of Notre Dame Mendoza College; in 2009, he completed certification with the Pastoral Provision in the Catholic Church at Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall University in the Archdiocese of Newark. He is currently pursuing the PhD in theological studies with the Graduate Theological Foundation/Foundation House.
Robert received the Master of Arts in Christian Ministry from Faith Lutheran Theological Seminary and the honorary Doctor of Divinity from the St. Paul Christian University of St. Paul, Indiana, a Methodist institution. In 1996 Paul Schenck became rector of the historic Cummins Memorial Church near Baltimore, Maryland. Both have received numerous awards from legal, community, charitable and relief organizations.
The Schencks work side by side on Capitol Hill in Washington where Robert is president of Faith and Action, an ecumenical mission, and Paul is chairman of the National Pro-Life Center. The buildings are at 109 and 113 2nd Street North East, just across from the official entrance to the United States Supreme Court. Robert is also chaplain to the Capitol Hill Executive Club, and a member of the Board of the Evangelical Alliance. Father Paul Schenck is a priest of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg (PA), Director of the Respect Life Office and Parochial Administrator at Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament Church in Harrisburg. He is married and has eight children, two daughters-in-law and a son-in-law. Schenck was ordained a priest through the Pastoral Provision that allows married Anglican clergy to become Catholic priests.
Robert has been a regular attendee at the annual National Prayer Breakfasts held in Washington, D.C as part of National Day of Prayer. He is also involved in National Bible Reading Marathon on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol. During the Marathon, dozens of volunteers read aloud the entire Bible, which takes the participants about 80 hours.
Robert has been conducting what he calls the "Ten Commandments Project." He has long pursued the posting of the Decalogue in government buildings and schools and some political leaders in the Capitol still display plastic tablets depicting the Ten Commandments that Robert has delivered to them. He also involved himself in the controversy of judge Roy Moore and the Ten Commandments courthouse monument, both participating in the vigils outside of the courthouse and as a media commentator.
On June 27, 2005, Robert walked out on Billy Graham during the second night of his Queens, New York crusade on Saturday, after Graham yielded the stage to Bill Clinton and suggested his wife Hillary should be president.
Robert had access to Harriet Miers during her brief Supreme Court nomination and took exception that she was attending St. John's Episcopal Church, Washington, D.C. rather than the more conservative Church of Christ as she had done back in Texas. Both Paul and Robert increased visibility because their offices at Faith and Action and NPLAC were just across the street from the Supreme Court. In a 2005 CNN feature, they indicated that they can maintain opinions that are quite independent of the Bush administration.
On March 10, 2004, Paul, to the surprise of some of his Protestant associates, especially those back in Buffalo, entered into full communion with the Catholic Church. Paul served as a Pastoral Associate in Priests for Life from 2004–2007, was the National Representative of Catholics United for Life and was appointed Director fo the Office of Respect Life Activities by Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg (PA) in 2008. He has founded the National Pro-Life Action Center (NPLAC) on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC and remains its chairman.
Both brothers very publicly took pro-life stances about the Terri Schiavo controversy and tied the issue to future Supreme Court nominations.
On January 5, 2006, the Wall Street Journal reported that Robert and two Christian ministers claimed to have entered during off-hours the hearing rooms for the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel Alito and applied holy oil to the chairs.
On June 12, 2010, Paul Schenck was ordained a priest for the Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg. While Paul Schenck is married and has eight children, the ordination was permissible under the pastoral provision created by Pope John Paul II for Anglican clergy received into full communion with the Catholic Church.
Fr. Paul C.B. Schenck conducts pro-life ministry in three capital cities, Harrisburg, PA, Annapolis, MD and Washington, DC as well as throughout the nation.
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