Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, known for his radically pro-abortion and pro-LGBT positions, was originally scheduled to receive a “lifetime achievement award” from Cardinal Blase Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago, this November. This news sparked controversy among Catholics. Fierce criticism has come from U.S. bishops, first from Springfield, Illinois, bishop Thomas Paprocki, who reiterated in a First Things article that support for abortion disqualifies one from Catholic honors, and violates diocesan norms. [Ed: It also violates point four of the bishops conference’s own policy, dating from 2004, here.] I’ve discussed the matter extensively here.

“I was shocked to learn that the Archdiocese of Chicago intends to honor Senator Richard Durbin with a lifetime achievement award,” Paprocki said in a statement released September 19 in response to questions from The Pillar. This initial criticism was then joined by that of nine other bishops, including the Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, who wrote on X: “Imagine this: a prominent member of the United States Senate has a very strong record of defending the human dignity of life in the womb, yet also supports funding Border Patrol agents to shoot people trying to enter the country illegally. Would anyone think it reasonable to honor such a senator for his pro-life record on abortion? No one who supports the direct and intentional killing of innocent human life should be honored. Period.”

Pope Leo XIV, questioned on the matter at his residence in Castel Gandolfo, apparently expressed a favorable opinion, emphasizing the importance of evaluating Durbin’s entire 40-year work in the U.S. Senate, while acknowledging the ethical tensions. He criticized those who claim to be pro-life but support the death penalty or inhumane treatment of immigrants, calling the issues “complex.” To the question of the EWTN journalist, he answered as follows: “I think it’s very important to consider the overall work a senator has done during… 40 years of service in the United States Senate,” he declared. “I understand the difficulties and tensions, but I think, as I’ve said in the past, it’s important to consider many issues related to Church teaching.” “Anyone who says they’re against abortion but in favor of the death penalty isn’t really pro-life. Anyone who says they’re against abortion but agrees with the inhumane treatment of immigrants in the United States—I don’t know if they’re pro-life,” Leo XIV later stated. He concluded: “So, these are very complex issues; I don’t know if anyone knows the whole truth about them.”

The same day, shortly after the Pope’s words, Durbin announced that he would decline the award, surprised by the “level of controversy” and to avoid harming Cardinal Cupich. Subsequently, Durbin, emotionally commenting on the Pope’s words about his case, expressed himself in an interview with NBC News as follows: “It’s incredible for me. It’s a really special moment. I didn’t expect it. I didn’t know it was going to happen.”

To further understand the issue, it’s useful to take a step back in time to July 9, 1993, to an interview given by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, during an international course on the Catechism of the Catholic Church held in El Escorial. He was interviewed (the text of the interview in German is here) on highly topical moral issues, including abortion and the death penalty. It should be remembered that a few months earlier, on October 11, 1992, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a work that had enjoyed enormous editorial success, had been published under his direction and at the behest of Pope John Paul II. His answers reflect the clarity with which he distinguished between the non-negotiable defense of innocent life and the legitimate debates about criminal justice that are the purview of society. Case in point:

Question: What is your personal opinion on the death penalty? Why is the Church so strict on the issue of abortion and so “generous” on the death penalty? Isn’t the Church inconsistent in this matter?

Cardinal Ratzinger: I would like to begin with the last question. Abortion cannot be compared to the death penalty, as if they were the same thing. In abortion, one evidently kills a completely innocent person, placing one’s own limited life goals before the right to life of another human being. The death penalty is something entirely different. It presupposes a serious crime punished by society. Regarding the first part of your question, I would like to say that I personally favor the abolition of the death penalty and the corresponding socio-political objective. But I would not go so far as to say that it should be absolutely excluded, forever and under all circumstances. I think of a terrible example: Eichmann and the other hardened criminals in the Auschwitz extermination camp. Can we say that a constitutional state is completely wrong when it assesses whether such criminals deserve the death penalty? In today’s concrete politics, I advocate the abolition of the death penalty. But this personal desire and this social objective cannot be based on a doctrine of faith in the sense that the Church should declare the death penalty incompatible with the faith and therefore prohibit it at all times and under all circumstances. The question of the death penalty is not directly the object or content of the Christian profession of faith. It is an instrument of the administration of justice within the State, on which one can express an opinion from the perspective of faith and morality as Christians and as the Church. The demand for an unconditional and absolute prohibition of the death penalty does not necessarily stem from Christian belief.

Ratzinger’s thesis is that of the Church that has been maintained for 2,000 years. Pope Francis, however, later changed the Catechism (no 2267). The current text, in the third paragraph, states: “Therefore, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible…'” It is important to note, however, that when Pope Francis writes “The Church teaches,” he cites as the sole source of this “teaching” his own speech to participants in the meeting sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization (October 11, 2017): L’Osservatore Romano (October 13, 2017).