In remarks to EWTN Vatican correspondent Valentina Di Donato at Castel Gandolfo Sept. 30, Pope Leo weighed in on the dispute over Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich’s plan to honor U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin with a “lifetime achievement award” despite Durbin’s pro‑abortion voting record.
Di Donato asked the Pope, “One thing that has become a very, very divisive subject in the U.S. right now is Cardinal Cupich giving an award to Senator Durbin. So people of faith are having a hard time with understanding that Cupich is pro, or rather is for, legalized abortion. How would you help people of faith right now decipher that, feel about that, and how do you feel about that?”
“I’m not terribly familiar with the particular case,” Pope Leo responded.
“I think that it’s very important to look at the overall work that a senator has done during, if I’m not mistaken, 40 years of service in the United States Senate,” the Pope added. “I understand the difficulty and the tensions, but I think, as I myself have spoken in the past, it’s important to look at many issues that are related to what is the teaching of the Church. Someone who says I’m against abortion but says I’m in favor of the death penalty is not really pro-life.
“So someone who says that I’m against abortion but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants who are in the United States, I don’t know if that’s pro-life. So they’re very complex issues. I don’t know if anyone has all the truth on them, but I would ask first and foremost that there be greater respect for one another and that we search together both as human beings, in that case as American citizens or citizens of the state of Illinois, as well as Catholics to say we need to really look closely at all of these ethical issues and to find the way forward as Church. Church teaching on each one of those issues is very clear.”
CatholicVote has been covering the growing chorus of bishops speaking out against honoring Sen. Durbin. Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield — the bishop of Durbin’s home diocese — has taken the lead among U.S. bishops in publicly rebuking Cardinal Cupich’s decision.
On Sept. 19, Bishop Paprocki issued his first public statement correcting Cardinal Cupich, noting that “honoring a public figure who has actively worked to expand and entrench the right to end innocent human life in the womb undermines the very concept of human dignity and solidarity that the award purports to uphold.”
In his second public statement, Bishop Paprocki called the move “gravely mistaken,” arguing that honoring Durbin — a Catholic lawmaker with a long record of supporting abortion — runs contrary to both the moral teachings of the Church and the stated policies of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the Chicago archdiocese itself.
“Throughout his tenure,” Bishop Paprocki wrote, “Sen. Durbin has been an outspoken proponent of legal abortion. In his nearly three decades in the U.S. Senate, Durbin has dedicated himself to creating, preserving, and expanding a legal right to abortion — that is, a legal right to kill an innocent human being in the womb.”
After Pope Leo’s comments on the matter, CatholicVote shared a brief response on X.
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