I suppose the Archdiocese of Chicago gets some grace period for raising a pope. But the honeymoon may be ending, given what the cardinal there just put us through. It was possibly the most annoyingly unnecessary controversy of the year.
The archdiocese announced that it would honor Illinois Senator Dick Durbin with a lifetime achievement award at an immigration event. Many of us spoke out against it; among the critics were bishops, including Durbin’s own bishop in Springfield (although Cardinal Cupich suggests approvingly that he’s shopped for a more favorable one — namely, Cupich). When all was said and done, a reporter had gotten the pope to say something vague and unencouraging to those of us who are demoralized by the moral muddle emanating from the Catholic Church.
Durbin has decided not to receive the award. Cardinal Cupich is not pleased. In a statement about polarization and all the pro-life issues, he missed the opportunity to point out that former Illinois Congressman Dan Lipinski, a Democrat, challenged his party on life — taking Catholic social teaching seriously across the board — and was punished for it by the Democrats and the abortion industry.
Last Thursday night, I was emceeing a fundraiser in Chicago for Aid to Women, which runs pregnancy-care centers and maternity homes there. At one point, while I was speaking, I was looking straight at Lipinski. I almost made up a lifetime achievement award on the spot, except he has plenty of lifetime in him yet. But he has the right idea.
We may never know if Durbin was asked to step aside from the award by someone in the church. Rumor has it that the bishops’ conference felt that it was going to have to weigh in, which could have been embarrassing for Cupich.
Do the pope’s comments indicate he is on Cupich’s side, and in other circumstances might have been in the audience cheering Durbin on? I think to assume so would be to fall into exactly the routine he seems to want to urge us away from. Not everything is red vs. blue. Christ’s are more vibrant colors — calling us to be far more radical than any political platform.
And the fact is that we cannot go on with Democrats being for abortion and Republicans being against. Given the last presidential platform after Dobbs, the Republicans aren’t even reliable there anymore. In some sense, it’s just as well, since maybe life after Roe means that politicians are going to be more honest when they really don’t care about abortion one way or another.
As science and our emotions show, unborn life is developing human life. When we want the baby, we see it as a baby, born or unborn. It’s just when convenience becomes our priority that meanings change and the value of human life is abandoned. Abortion is murder.
This is miserable.
What Pope Leo said was not his version of John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae (the Gospel of Life). We have miles to go with this pontiff yet, and everyone should take a deep breath before issuing celebratory press releases or condemnations in X posts about what he said.
Yesterday, the March for Life announced its theme for the January march: Life is a gift. Beautifully basic. How can we adapt to that — personally, practically, politically? The March for Life isn’t a Republican or Democratic event. So let’s start again with the simple and all-encompassing premise that life is a gift. Let’s meet there and see what we can do to protect it and help it flourish.