Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) was planning to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich for Durbin's work with immigrants. There was tremendous backlash from some American Catholic bishops and Catholic laity, pointing to Durbin's record on abortion as disqualifying.
Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, IL, said giving the award to Durbin would be "scandalous." In a statement sent to Catholic publication The Pillar, Paprocki said, "I was shocked to learn that the Archdiocese of Chicago plans to honor Senator Richard Durbin with a Lifetime Achievement Award."
Paprocki continued, "Given Senator Durbin’s long and consistent record of supporting legal abortion — including opposing legislation to protect children who survive failed abortions - this decision risks causing grave scandal, confusing the faithful about the Church’s unequivocal teaching on the sanctity of human life. 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."
As Townhall columnist Terry Jeffrey noted, Durbin advocated for an abortion for an "unaccompanied minor" who crossed the US border. She was about eight weeks pregnant:
When Durbin questioned Kavanaugh at his Supreme Court nomination hearing, he noted this passage from Kavanaugh's dissent in Garza.
Then, according to the Judiciary Committee's transcript and Durbin's YouTube video, Durbin said to Kavanaugh: "You argued that permitting the Government additional time to find a sponsor for a young woman in the case did not impose an undue burden, even though the Government's conduct in the case had already forced her to delay her decision on an abortion by several weeks."
"She made a personal decision that she was not ready to be a parent and did not want to continue her pregnancy," Durbin said.
Durbin did not call for protecting the life of an unborn child who came across the border in his mother's womb.
CatholicVote also objected to Durbin's receiving the award and ran a petition on its Acton Center, which received over 40,000 signatures.
Now, Durbin has decided to turn down the award. Cardinal Cupich released a statement about it, defending his decision:
Senator Durbin today informed me that he has decided not to receive an award at our Keep Hope Alive celebration. While I am saddened by this news, I respect his decision. But I want to make clear that the decision to present him an award was specifically in recognition of his singular contribution to immigration reform and his unwavering support of immigrants, which is so needed in our day.
Yet, I would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to share some additional thoughts, which I offer as your pastor.
As I look back on my 50 years as a priest and 27 years as a bishop, I have seen the divisions within the Catholic community dangerously deepen. These divisions harm the unity of the church and undermine our witness to the Gospel. Bishops cannot simply ignore this situation because we have a duty to promote unity and assist all Catholics to embrace the teachings of the church as a consistent whole.
The tragedy of our current situation in the United States is that Catholics find themselves politically homeless. The policies of neither political party perfectly encapsulate the breadth of Catholic teaching.
And here is where the Cardinal, and even Pope Leo, get it wrong.
Pope Leo commented on the situation, saying, "Someone who says I’m against abortion but is in favor of the death penalty is not really pro-life. Someone who says I’m against abortion but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don’t know if that’s pro-life."
In Catholic teaching, abortion is always, unequivocally, prohibited. There is no room for compromise on the issue. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says:
Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. "A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae,"76 "by the very commission of the offense,"77 and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law.78 The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.
The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation.
Senator Durbin, through his words and actions, engaged in formal cooperation with abortion. By default, Durbin has excommunicated himself from the Catholic Church and must go through Reconciliation and penance, which would require a permanent rejection of abortion. In the UK, a priest denied an MP communion because he voted in favor of assisted suicide, something also prohibited by the Catholic Church.
It doesn't seem that Durbin will be rejecting abortion any time soon. On top of all of this, Cardinal Cupich is much harsher on traditional Catholics in the Chicago archdiocese, essentially prohibiting the celebration of the Latin Mass in Chicago parishes because he -- like the late Pope Francis -- found the old form of worship "divisive." It's a slap in the face to turn around and award Senator Durbin, a man who openly defies Catholic teaching.
On the other hand, the Catechism of the Catholic Church says nations have the right to limit immigration and enforce immigration laws (emphasis added):
The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him.
Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.
The United States is, bluntly, broke. We cannot afford to care for our own people, let alone millions of immigrants who demand free housing, education, and healthcare. Every illegal immigrant who crossed the border without proper authorization broke our laws, and many of them refuse to respect the "material and spiritual heritage" of America.
In other words, there can be a good-faith argument on immigration and how to address America's border security. Enforcing immigration laws and deporting illegal immigrants is not "inhumane treatment" -- it is the sovereign duty of the government.
Abortion, on the other hand, can never be argued in good faith. It is a grave sin and negates any work someone may have done on immigration.
Durbin did not deserve the award and Cupich never should have offered it in the first place.
