In the landscape of the Catholic Church in the United States, marked by tensions between social commitment and fidelity to moral doctrine, a development has emerged that has shaken the foundations of ecclesial dialogue. Cardinal Blase Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago, announced his intention to award a “Lifetime Achievement Award” to Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, a prominent figure in Illinois politics. (Durbin has since withdrawn himself). Durbin, a vocal Catholic, is known for his long legislative support for abortion rights, a position that directly conflicts with the teaching of the Catholic Church. This decision, scheduled to take place during a fundraiser, is more than a symbolic gesture: it represents a crossroads between commitment to immigration—the field in which Durbin is celebrated—and the non-negotiable principle of defending human life from conception.

Cupich, often described as a “dissident” cardinal for his open positions on issues such as dialogue with pro-choice politicians, justified the award by citing the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s 2022 guidelines, which encourage bishops to “reach out and engage in dialogue with Catholic politicians in their jurisdictions.” The award, according to the cardinal, celebrates Durbin’s contributions to immigration policy, an area in which the senator has devoted energy to broader reforms and increased federal funding for Catholic groups during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some Catholic journalists have speculated that Cupich intends to award Durbin the prize as a form of reward for Durbin’s apparent efforts to increase federal funding for Catholic groups in the Chicago area during the COVID-19 outbreak.

However, Durbin’s career cannot be separated from his history of open support for abortion. A senator since 1997, he has repeatedly voted in favor of measures that facilitate access to abortion, including amendments to the Obama healthcare plan and opposition to federal restrictions. This inconsistency with Catholic doctrine—which considers abortion an “unspeakable crime” and murder—has turned the award into a symbol of division.

This incident is not isolated: It reflects a broader debate on “pro-life coherence” in Catholic politics, where support for immigration—an evangelical imperative—cannot circumvent the ethical foundation of life. Cupich, president of the Catholic Conference of Illinois (CCI), defended the move as an invitation to dialogue, but reactions indicate that for many fellow bishops, it risks becoming an implicit endorsement of anti-life positions.

A Wave of Criticism from American Clergy

Cupich’s decision has generated an outcry among the U.S. bishops, transforming a local event into a national crisis. Ten prelates, incumbent and retired ordinaries, have publicly condemned the award, calling it a “source of scandal” and an example of “pastoral negligence.” This wave of criticism is not merely verbal: it has had concrete repercussions, including the postponement of church meetings, and has forced the Vatican to intervene.

Among the first to react was Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois. The announcement of the award prompted Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield to express his shock at the decision and his concern that it “it risks causing grave scandal.” Paprocki emphasized that Durbin is prohibited from receiving Holy Communion in the Diocese of Springfield, where he resides, because of his support for legal abortion.

“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.

“Given Senator Durbin’s long and consistent record in support of legal abortion, including opposition to legislation aimed at protecting children who survive botched abortions, this decision risks causing a serious scandal by confusing the faithful about the Church’s unequivocal teaching on the sanctity of human life ,” Paprocki added.

“Honoring a public figure who actively worked to expand and consolidate 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,” the bishop said.

The archbishop of an important city, San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, also intervened, writing in a tweet: “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.”

Other bishops who spoke out to harshly criticize Cardinal Cupich included Bishop Joseph Strickland, Bishop Emeritus of Tyler, Texas; Bishop David Ricken of Green Bay, Wisconsin; Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska; Bishop James Wall of Gallup, New Mexico; Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth, Texas; Bishop Carl Kemme of Wichita, Kansas; and Bishop James Johnston of Kansas City, Missouri.

Finally, as the tenth critical pastor, one of the most important archbishops in the United States has been added, the recently retired Archbishop of Kansas City Joseph Naumann, who was, among other positions, chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities and vice-chairman of the Committee on Religious Liberty, as well as of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). He has frequently spoken out against granting Holy Communion to politicians who openly dissent from Catholic teaching on abortion.

In statements provided to the National Catholic Register last weekend, Archbishop Joseph Naumann said regarding the Durbin award: “Dialogue does not require awarding prizes to Catholic political leaders who ignore the most fundamental of human rights, the right to life of the unborn.” And, “Ignoring the policies and recommendations of the Episcopal Conference is not synodal and only serves to fragment unity.” He emphasized that the USCCB has “consistently identified the protection of unborn children and their mothers from the tragedy of abortion as the foremost human rights issue of our time.”

As can be seen, these prelates do not challenge Durbin’s commitment to immigration—a topic dear to the Church’s social doctrine—but they emphasize its incompatibility with support for abortion. As one of them argued, “Dialogue does not require awarding prizes to leaders who ignore the most fundamental of human rights.”

The website Complicit Clergy has launched a campaign to urge silent bishops to speak up, while the five ordinaries in Illinois — Cupich, Ronald Hicks of Joliet, Louis Tylka of Peoria, David Malloy of Rockford, and Paprocki — show internal divisions. Only Paprocki has spoken openly, with Peoria, Rockford, and Joliet abstaining, and Belleville vacant following the appointment of Michael McGovern to Omaha.

According to Jonathan Liedl of the National Catholic Register, as reported by Lifesitenews, two meetings of Catholic groups chaired by Cupich were recently “postponed indefinitely,” likely because of his controversial decision, which drew criticism from 10 bishops across the United States.

Pope Leo XIV’s Address: A Call to Ethical-Pastoral Complexity

With criticism mounting, Pope Leo XIV, as reported by CNA, spoke out on September 30, responding to EWTN News as he left Castel Gandolfo. Born in Chicago, Cardinal Cupich’s diocese, the Pontiff urged people to consider “the senator’s resume in its entirety” and to “seek the truth together on ethical issues.” “I don’t know the specific case very well. I think it’s important to consider the overall work done by a senator during, if I’m not mistaken, 40 years of service in the United States Senate,” he said.

Acknowledging “difficulties and tensions,” Leo XIV recalled Church teaching, saying: “Whoever says they are against abortion but favors the death penalty is not truly pro-life.” He expanded his argument: “Whoever says they are against abortion but agrees with the inhumane treatment of immigrants in the United States—I don’t know whether they are pro-life.”

“So these are very complex issues, and I don’t know if anyone knows the whole truth about them,” he continued, “but I would ask first of all that there be mutual respect and that we try together, both as human beings and, in this case, as American citizens and citizens of the state of Illinois, as well as Catholics, to say that we must be sympathetic to all these ethical issues. And to find the path forward as a Church. The Church’s teaching on each of these issues is very clear,” he concluded, calling for a synodal path. The papal intervention, while calming the situation, reaffirmed the priority of life, but without rigid hierarchies.

The Right to Life: The Eternal Foundation of Catholic Doctrine

Respect for human life

The heated debate between some American pastors and the impromptu intervention of Pope Leo XIV bring to light some questions that have never been resolved among prelates regarding the hierarchy of principles of the doctrine of the Catholic Church, such as the defense and respect for human life, the welcome of immigrants, the dignity of the person and the morality/immorality of the death penalty, the latter expressly recalled by the Pope. This hierarchy, always confirmed in the doctrine of the Catholic Church, has been somewhat distorted by the Declaration Dignitas Infinita, as we shall see later.

The controversy highlights an unchanged principle: the Catholic Church places the right to life as the “foundation of all human rights,” essential to justice, peace, and freedom.

In the 1980s, Joseph Ratzinger stated: “The right to life is the prerequisite for every other right. He who is not living cannot exercise any other right.” This tradition—from Sinai to today—reminds us that honoring those who deny life erodes ethical foundations, inviting a comprehensive pro-life stance.

Let’s summarize the key documents.

John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae (1995), no. 40 states: “From the sacredness of life flows its inviolability, inscribed from the beginning in the heart of man, in his conscience…. The commandment ‘You shall not kill’ is at the center of God’s covenant with man.” At no. 58, abortion is called an “unspeakable crime,” the “deliberate and direct killing…of an innocent and defenseless human being,” which undermines society.

Benedict XVI, in Caritas in Veritate (2009), links life and social ethics (no. 15): “a society lacks solid foundations when… it permits… devalued human life”; at 28, “openness to life is at the heart of authentic development”; at 51, violations undermine “human ecology” and peace; at 75, the social question is “anthropological,” denouncing the “culture of death.”

From what has been reported, it is clear that the principle of protecting human life takes priority over the principle of welcoming migrants, which is equally important. While the principle of protecting and promoting life is absolute, the principle of welcoming migrants is left to the discretion of a state’s policy, while respecting human dignity, which must never be violated.

Both principles derive from the recognition and respect for human dignity.

Human dignity and the death penalty

The concept of human dignity brings us back to that of capital punishment and to the phrase of Pope Leo XIV: “Whoever says he is against abortion but is in favor of the death penalty is not truly pro-life.”

This sentence deserves in-depth reflection because it refers to the heated debate that developed when Pope Francis changed the Catechism at n. 2267 regarding the “inadmissibility” of the death penalty and the controversial Declaration of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith Dignitas Infinita, signed by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández and “Ex Audientia” by Pope Francis.

The issue is complex, and I refer you to a previous article of mine (read here). It’s enough to clarify two concepts here, the first on the death penalty and the other on Dignitas Infinita, closely related to the first.

Regarding the death penalty, I believe it is appropriate to emphasize that raising objections, criticisms, or reflections regarding the new version of No. 2267 (August 2018) of the Catechism does not mean favoring the application of capital punishment by a legitimate authority, nor is it in favor of capital executions. Recognizing the legitimacy of capital punishment in principle, and therefore its “admissibility,” means acknowledging that, as Pope John Paul II said, it is “cruel and unnecessary,” and therefore should be applied only in extreme and residual situations, when the defense of the common good, the defense of innocent lives, requires it.

Moreover, the Catholic Church’s uninterrupted two-thousand-year teaching in favor of the lawfulness of the death penalty is there to demonstrate this. Furthermore, the revised Catechism does not teach that the use of capital punishment is “intrinsically immoral.” However, it is absolutely affirmed that the death penalty is “inadmissible.” Finally, when Pope Francis reformulates the text of n. 2267 as follows: “Therefore, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible,'” in reality, when he writes “the Church teaches” he cites as the only source his own speech given to participants in the meeting promoted by the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization (11 October 2017): see L’Osservatore Romano (13 October 2017).

Regarding Dignitas Infinita of April 8, 2024, it is important to point out that, alongside its many beautiful and interesting aspects, there are points of inaccuracy that generate confusion, starting with the title.

As Diane Montagna reports in her interview with the philosopher Edward Feser,

“Dignitas infinitas” opens by stating that “Every human person possesses an infinite dignity, inalienably grounded in his or her very being, which prevails in and beyond every circumstance, state, or situation the person may ever encounter.” However, St. Thomas Aquinas writes: “Only God is of infinite dignity, and therefore only he, in the flesh he assumed, could adequately satisfy man.” (Solus autem Deus est infinitae dignitatis, qui carne assumpta pro homine necessarir satisfacere poterat).

Furthermore, the Declaration states: “The most important of these is the ontological dignity that belongs to the person as such simply because he or she exists and is willed, created, and loved by God. Ontological dignity is indelible and remains valid regardless of the circumstances in which the person may find himself or herself.” It therefore seems, reading this sentence, that infinite dignity is rooted in human nature. In reality, as Feser states, “we do not have this orientation by nature, but only by grace.” “Only God has or could have an infinite ontological dignity.” Indeed, if we had an “infinite ontological dignity,” it would be inexplicable why we could deserve eternal damnation, hell, which is the blatant denial of the dignity we have received by grace but which, through our freedom, we have eternally lost.

Feser observes:

There is a connection between the question of the death penalty and the doctrine of hell. If the abuse of our freedom can lead to eternal damnation, then it can certainly justify the legitimacy of the much lesser punishment of execution. But this reasoning could easily be reversed. If the death penalty is contrary to our dignity, then how could the far worse punishment of hell not also be so? The two doctrines ultimately stand or fall together.

The conclusion of all this reasoning, returning to the phrase of Pope Leo XIV, is that recognizing the legitimacy in principle of the death penalty does not necessarily mean not being pro-life.

Conclusion

The Cupich-Durbin affair isn’t just a spur-of-the-moment scandal born from the desire of a progressive cardinal, Cupich, to award a lifetime achievement award to a politician who is and has been strongly pro-abortion and who has also been active in the field of immigration. It is actually a sign of a broader conflict between sharply opposing theological positions on fundamental issues of Catholic doctrine. It is also a warning to reconcile social commitment and doctrinal fidelity, which has been severely shaken under Francis’s papacy.

Pope Leo XIV found himself having to address the Cupich-Durbin issue extemporaneously as he was leaving Castel Gandolfo because of questions from a journalist. The friction is, however, extremely delicate and points to some of the issues left by Pope Francis that Pope Leo will have to try to resolve.