Senator Durbin informs Cardinal Cupich no award for me

 

Cardinal Cupich: Sen. Durbin ‘has decided not to receive’ controversial lifetime achievement award

written by Lauretta Brown and Gretchen R. Crowe

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, speaks at a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington March 1, 2023. (OSV News photo/Sarah Silbiger, Reuters)

(OSV News) — Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., has decided not to receive a “Lifetime Achievement Award,” scheduled to be presented in November at the archdiocese’s “Keep Hope Alive” celebration, according to a statement by Chicago Cardinal Blase J. Cupich Sept. 30.

The award, scheduled to be given to Durbin for his work on immigration issues, had met with significant opposition from several Catholic bishops due to the Catholic senator’s longstanding public position in favor of abortion.

“While I am saddened by this news, I respect his decision,” Cardinal Cupich said in his statement. “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.”

Pope Leo’s comments

The decision comes only hours after Pope Leo XIV commented on Cardinal Cupich’s decision to give Durbin the award, saying he was “not terribly familiar with the particular case.”

An EWTN News reporter asked Pope Leo about “Cardinal Cupich giving an award to Sen. Durbin” saying, “some people of faith are having a hard time with understanding this because he is pro or rather he 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 am not terribly familiar with the particular case,” he responded. “I think that it’s 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. 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,” the pope continued. “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 are very complex issues, and I don’t know if anyone has all the truth on them,” the pope said, “but I would ask first and foremost that they would have 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 that we need to, you know, really look closely at all of these ethical issues. And to find the way forward as a church. The church teaching on each one of those issues is very clear.”

Cardinal Cupich and the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Office of Human Dignity and Solidarity Immigration Ministry were scheduled to give Durbin the award Nov. 3 at an event supporting the Archdiocese of Chicago’s local Immigration Ministry and National Pastoral Migratoria.

Bishop Paprocki’s view

In a Sept. 24 interview with OSV News, Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois — in whose diocese Durbin resides, according to his official biography — said that presenting the award would be “contrary to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ statement on ‘Catholics in Political Life'” which states “The Catholic community and Catholic Institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.” 

He added that the Archdiocese of Chicago has a similar policy that the award would violate.

In comments posted Oct. 1 to his Facebook page, Bishop Paprocki said he was “grateful Sen. Durbin has declined this Lifetime Achievement Award. As we begin Respect Life Month, I ask that all Catholics continue to pray for our Church, our country, and for the human dignity of all people to be respected in all stages of life including the unborn and immigrants.”

Moving forward in unity

In his statement, Cardinal Cupich said in his 50 years as a priest, he has “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.”

Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, responded to Cardinal Cupich’s appeal on the social media platform X, on how the church might move forward in unity.

“As Pope Leo XIV’s motto reminds us, ‘In the One, we are one’. Certainly, we can only move forward together if we recognize that our unity as a Christian people depends upon our responding with daily fidelity to our Lord and by our witness to the Gospel of Life,” he said. 

Bishop Burbidge said sincere dialogue is essential to the health of a political community, but said productive conversations require “participants share a basic commitment to certain objective moral realities about what is good and evil.” He said true dialogue “cannot take place when a purportedly Catholic lawmaker turns a blind eye to the killing of innocent persons” and will first require a conversion of heart and mind.

He acknowledged the prudential application of the church’s teachings on human dignity will be complex in a polarized society but also emphasized that the church “must continue to boldly proclaim the Gospel of Life in its entirety.”

“Our public witness to the Gospel, to convincingly move hearts and minds to conversion, will always require that the Church show the hierarchy and unity of all truths,” he said. “A consistent ethic of life requires the faithful proclamation of challenging teachings just as it also requires the avoidance of scandal from actions that would convey ambiguity or indifference to the moral law.”

Lauretta Brown is culture editor for OSV News. Follow her on X @LaurettaBrown6. Gretchen R. Crowe is editor-in-chief at OSV News. Follow here on X @GretchenOSV. OSV News national news editor Peter Jesserer Smith also contributed to this report.

Pope Leo XIV discusses the whole Senator Durbin, Cardinal Cupich thing

 

UPDATE: Pope Leo XIV wades into Durbin debate

Pope Leo XIV waves to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican for his general audience on Sept.24, 2025. | Credit: Vatican Media

By Valentina di Donato , Madalaine Elhabbal

Rome Newsroom, Sep 30, 2025 / 15:36 pm

Pope Leo XIV responded to controversy over the Chicago cardinal’s plans to honor a Catholic U.S. senator who supports legalized abortion, saying that the senator’s record should be considered in its totality and that Americans should search together for the truth on ethical issues.

Several U.S. bishops condemned Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich’s plans to honor U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Illinois, with a “lifetime achievement award” for his work surrounding immigration policy despite his pro-abortion voting record. 

“I am not terribly familiar with the particular case. I think it’s important to look at the overall work that a senator has done during, if I’m not mistaken, in 40 years of service in the United States Senate,” the pope told reporters on Tuesday in response to a question from EWTN News.

He said: “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 the teachings of the Church.”

“Someone who says I’m against abortion but is in favor of the death penalty is not really pro-life,” the pope explained. “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.”

“So they are very complex issues and I don’t know if anyone has all the truth on them,” he continued, “but I would ask first and foremost that they would have respect for one another and that we search together both as human beings and in that case as American citizens and citizens of the state of Illinois, as well as Catholics, to say that we need to be close to all of these ethical issues. And to find the way forward as a Church. The Church teaching on each one of those issues is very clear.”

The number of U.S. bishops who have condemned Cupich’s decision to honor Durbin with a “lifetime achievement award” has risen to 10, including two bishops emeritus. The Chicago-born Pope Leo spoke to reporters as he was leaving the papal villa of Castel Gandolfo near Rome, where in recent weeks he has made it a practice to spend Tuesdays before returning to the Vatican.

Seven current bishops have joined Springfield, Illinois, Bishop Thomas Paprocki in calling on Cupich to reconsider honoring Durbin including Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco; Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska; Bishop James Wall of Gallup, New Mexico; Bishop David Ricken of Green Bay, Wisconsin; Bishop Carl Kemme of Wichita, Kansas; Bishop James Johnston of St. Joseph-Kansas City, Missouri; and Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth, Texas. 

The recently retired Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, also addressed the controversy over the weekend in a statement released to the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, in which he referred to the move by Cupich as a “source of scandal.” 

Cupich has defended the award as being aligned with instructions by the then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2022, which instructed bishops “to reach out to and engage in dialogue with Catholic politicians within their jurisdictions.”

A spokesperson for Cupich did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Responding to Cupich’s argument, Naumann said in the statement: “Dialogue does not require giving awards to Catholic political leaders who disregard the most fundamental of human rights, the right to life of the unborn.” 

Bishop Emeritus Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, has also called on Cupich to reverse his decision to proceed with the award. 

In an interview on EWTN’s “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo” on Sept. 25, Paprocki called on the Chicago cardinal to either withdraw the award or Durbin himself to decline it. 

A spokesperson for Durbin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cupich has since canceled meetings with two groups of Illinois Catholic leaders, the Catholic Conference of Illinois and a separate meeting of Illinois bishops, this past week. 

So far, the Illinois bishops of Peoria, Rockford, and Joliet have refrained from joining Paprocki in calling for Cupich to reverse his decision, while the Diocese of Belleville is currently awaiting the appointment of a new bishop, after its former Bishop Michael McGovern was appointed archbishop of Omaha.

This story was updated on Sept. 30, 2025, at 4:23 p.m. ET with the various bishops’ comments.

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Valentina di Donato is a pr

Archbishop Naumann rebukes Cardinal Cupich for honoring Senator Durbin; a source of scandal

 

Archbishop Naumann Accuses Cardinal Cupich of ‘Pastoral Neglect’ for Honoring Pro-Abortion Senator

The retired archbishop of Kansas City, Kansas — a past chairman of the U.S. bishops’ pro-life committee — is the latest American prelate to publicly chastise Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich for honoring U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, a long-standing advocate of legalized abortion

Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas (photo: Scott Maentz / Flickr (CC BY 2.0) via CNA)

Shannon Mullen NewsSeptember 27, 2025

Another U.S. bishop has publicly rebuked Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich for his plan to honor pro-abortion Sen. Richard Durbin with a lifetime achievement award.

In a statement released to the Register on Saturday, Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann, the recently retired ordinary of Kansas City, Kansas, said it is a “source of scandal” for the cardinal to recognize the Illinois senator in this way, calling it a case of “pastoral neglect.”

Archbishop Naumann is the latest American prelate to chastise Cardinal Cupich for deciding to honor Durbin — a Catholic politician whose own bishop banned him from receiving Communion in the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois — at the Chicago archdiocese’s Keep Hope Alive immigration-ministry fundraising dinner on Nov. 3.

Cardinal Cupich has steadfastly defended the move, saying the award is meant to recognize Durbin’s efforts to advance Catholic social teaching in immigration, care for the poor, environmental protection and the promotion of world peace.

“At the heart of the consistent ethic of life is the recognition that Catholic teaching on life and dignity cannot be reduced to a single issue, even an issue as important as abortion,” Cardinal Cupich said in a Sept. 22 statement.

In the same statement, the cardinal invoked the Vatican’s call for bishops to “reach out to and engage in dialogue with Catholic politicians within their jurisdictions ... as a means of understanding the nature of their positions and their comprehension of Catholic teaching.”

But Archbishop Naumann, a past chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ pro-life committee, said such a rationale “makes no sense.”

“Dialogue does not require giving awards to Catholic political leaders who disregard the most fundamental of human rights, the right to life of the unborn,” he said in his statement.

Archbishop Naumann emphasized that the USCCB “has consistently identified the protection of unborn children and their mothers from the tragedy of abortion as the primary human rights issue of our time.”

He explained that the bishops’ conference takes this position because abortion: “attacks the life of the most innocent and vulnerable;” “harms the family and the most fundamental of human relationships by pitting the welfare of mothers against the lives of their own children;” destroys innocent life on a “horrific magnitude,” and harms the women involved “physically, emotionally and spiritually.”

“Moreover, legalized abortion encourages the irresponsibility of men by absolving them from providing for the children they have fathered as well as caring for their mothers,” Archbishop Naumann said.

“Ignoring the policies and recommendations of the Bishops Conference is not synodal and serves to fracture unity,” he added. 

To date, eight active diocesan ordinaries in the U.S. have publicly disagreed with Cardinal Cupich's move to honor Durbin. Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki was the first to voice his opposition. Since then, the following prelates have issued statements opposing the honor and calling for Cardinal Cupich to reconsider his decision: Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco; Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska; Bishop James Wall of Gallup, New Mexico; Bishop David Ricken of Green Bay, Wisconsin; Bishop Carl Kemme of Wichita, Kansas, Bishop James Johnston of St. Joseph-Kansas City, Missouri and Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth, Texas.

Editor's note: This story was amended the evening of Sept. 27, 2025, after posting, to correct the tally of current diocesan bishops who have spoken out against honoring Sen. Dick Durbin.

Bishop Paprocki speaks up as Cardinal Cupich plans to honor a very pro-abort U.S. Senator

 

Paprocki: On Durbin award, ‘I had to say something’

“I'm hoping and praying for some reconsideration.“

The Pillar

Sep 22, 2025

The Archdiocese of Chicago announced recently its plans to honor Senator Dick Durbin with a “lifetime achievement award” from the archdiocesan office of human dignity and solidarity.

Durbin, who is Catholic, is scheduled to receive the award “for his work with immigrants” at a Nov. 3 fundraiser in the Chicago archdiocese.

Bishop Thomas Paprocki. File photo.

But late last week, Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois expressed “shock” over the decision, explaining that Durbin is prohibited from receiving the Eucharist in the Springfield diocese, where he resides, because of his advocacy for legal protection for abortion.

Paprocki talked with The Pillar Sept. 22 about the award, and his decision to speak out.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Bishop Paprocki, it is not common for a diocesan bishop to comment on decisions made in another diocese.

Why did you feel it important to say something about this award?

The main issue for me is the fact that Senator Durbin has his home here in Springfield, and in that regard, I'm still his bishop.

I know that he has a residence also in Chicago, and since he was told back in 2004 not to go to communion here in Springfield, he has started, for some time now, apparently going to Mass in Chicago.

But the fact is that he still has a domicile here, and that still gives me jurisdiction over him.

If he lived somewhere else — in another diocese — and I didn't have a direct connection I might not have said anything publicly about this. But in this case, because my predecessor was so strong in dealing with this matter and I've continued that here, I felt that I had to say something.

I think some people reading your comments might conclude that this is a partisan issue, that your intervention came because Sen. Durbin is a Democrat. Is this about a partisan position?

No, it’s not.

I would have done the same thing if Senator Durbin were a Republican.

For me, it's a pro-life matter, an abortion issue.

We have a politician here, who is a Catholic politician, and who has very publicly promoted a [policy of] abortion license, and has opposed any attempt to restrict abortion rights, and so that's what it comes down to.

I think it's also a question of the consistent ethic of life promoted by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, the late archbishop of Chicago, who I worked very closely with over the years … I served as his chancellor until he died.

So I think his emphasis on the “consistent ethic” was precisely what the phrase implies — we have to be consistent, and that you can't say, ‘well, I'm pro-life on 9 out of 10 issues, I just disagree with the Church on the abortion issue, but I'm still pro-life, I'm still consistent.’

I think Cardinal Bernardin’s answer to that would have been: ‘No, you can’t say that you’re pro-life if you’re not consistent across the board.’

Cardinal Berndardin didn't like it when people would use the consistent ethic to try to argue that you can downplay the abortion issue as long as you're promoting other social justice issues.

And I know that from his own words.

In 1998, he told the National Catholic Register: ‘I know that some people on the left, if I may use that label, have used the consistent ethic to give the impression that the abortion issue is not all that important anymore, that you should just be against abortion in a general way but there are more important issues, so don’t hold anybody’s feet to the fire just on abortion. That’s a misuse of the consistent ethic, and I deplore it.’

I think in this case, Cardinal Bernardin would deplore any attempt to say: ‘Well, we're just using a consistent ethic of life to honor Senator Durbin, even though he happens to be pro-abortion.’

I would say that's comparable to saying that someone is a good Catholic who follows 9 out of the 10 Commandments except for the one that says ‘Thou shalt not kill.’

Do you anticipate any reconsideration from the Chicago archdiocese?

Well, I’m hoping and praying for some reconsideration. I mean, I think that it would be important.

I've heard from a number of pro-life people who are very upset that the Archdiocese of Chicago is doing this.

And I think it would be important for people to speak out about this so that I’m not the only one speaking on it. If there is a general outcry from the Catholic community, saying that this really shouldn't be done and that the honor should be revoked, I would hope that the Archdiocese of Chicago and Cardinal Cupich would reconsider.

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone has already expressed some solidarity with your position. Do you anticipate other bishops might say something?

Yes, I do. And this is even something that I hope the USCCB would weigh in upon, because it is contrary to the statement the USCCB issued back in 2004 on Catholics and political life.

That statement is very clear as well, it says that the Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors, or platforms which would suggest support for their actions. So when you have an archdiocese basically acting contrary to this guidance from the USCCB, I don't know what the consequences are of that.

I would hope at least for some kind of a statement from the USCCB that this is contrary to our statement on Catholics and political life.

Would you feel compelled to speak out in the same way in a similar situation, if the person advocated for other things contrary to the faith — the unfettered use of the death penalty, for example…

Yes.

And again, this [Durbin] situation is connected to my own diocese.

But if there was a case in another diocese, and that bishop were to speak concern about the policies of the national bishops’ conference being flouted here, yes, I would've said something in support of that as well.

And I appreciate the Archdiocese of San Francisco and Archbishop Cordileone and their words of support, and I do anticipate that more [bishops] will be supportive as well.

There has been a great deal of emphasis placed at the USCCB in the past few years on unity, and the appearance of unity among bishops. And it seems that Pope Leo really wants to emphasize episcopal unity.

Have you violated that unity by speaking about a brother bishop the way that you have?

Well, I think the question is: Who initiated that? Who is violating the unity here?

I don’t think I'm violating unity by pointing out a violation of our USCCB statement and policy. It’s the violation of the USCCB statement that is acting contrary to our unity.

I think what we have to do is speak the truth, and when we see something that is wrong taking place, I don’t think that we should be silent or say, ‘Well, I don't want to say anything because that will violate unity.’

What’s violating unity is not speaking out, it’s that something has been done contrary to Church teaching.

I’m reminded that French bishops spoke out this summer, when the archbishop of Toulouse made a controversial appointment to the office of chancellor…

Yes.

Unity does not mean that you stay silent because you don't want to ruffle anybody's feathers. It certainly is desirable that we all speak with one voice and that we work together as Christ entrusted his mission to us. But when someone steps outside of what the Church teaches, well I think we have to call that out.