(LifeSiteNews) — The bishop of Springfield, Illinois, and chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Canonical Affairs & Church Governance called for the reversal of Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich’s decision to honor pro-abortion Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), warning that the move “threatens to scandalize the faithful and injure the bonds of ecclesial communion.”
A longtime Democrat and the party’s minority whip in the U.S. Senate, Durbin’s voting record has earned 0 percent pro-life scores and 100 percent pro-abortion scores from National Right to Life Committee, NARAL, and Planned Parenthood during the vast majority of his time in the Senate, for which he has been barred from receiving Communion in his home diocese in Springfield since 2004.
However, as previously covered by LifeSiteNews, Cupich has announced plans to honor Durbin with a “lifetime achievement” award through the Archdiocese of Chicago’s “human dignity” office at an immigration fundraiser.
READ: Archbishop Cordileone, Bishop Paprocki oppose Cupich’s plan to honor radical pro-abortion Democrat
“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,” Cupich said, defending the move. “The annual celebration of immigrants, Keep Hope Alive, will recognize all the critically important contributions Senator Durbin has taken to advance Catholic social teaching in the areas of immigration, the care of the poor, Laudato Si’, and world peace. The recognition of his defense of immigrants at this moment, when they are subjected to terror and harm, is not something to be regretted, but a reflection that the Lord stands profoundly with both immigrants who are in danger and those who work to protect them.”
Among those who have sharply criticized the decision is Bishop Thomas Paprocki. On September 23, he elaborated on his critique in an op-ed published by First Things.
“The decision to grant Durbin this honor is gravely mistaken,” he said, stressing that the “obscene violence” of abortion that Durbin protects “is contrary to human dignity and human solidarity.”
“Thus, it is absurd that Sen. Durbin should be given an award from the office of ‘human dignity and solidarity’ when Durbin has spent his time in office denying the human dignity of the unborn and undermining solidarity with the weakest and most vulnerable among us,” he continued.
“The planned honor is titled a ‘lifetime achievement award’ and the event where Durbin is to receive it is called the ‘Keep Hope Alive’ benefit. This is darkly ironic because the slaughter of the innocents in utero is nihilistic and always without hope, and the policies Durbin has supported have denied a lifetime to countless unborn children,” Bishop Paprocki wrote.
He noted that, contrary to Cupich’s defense that Catholic moral teaching “cannot be reduced to a single issue,” the Church actually teaches that “political commitment to a single isolated aspect of the Church’s social doctrine does not exhaust one’s responsibility towards the common good,” and therefore Durbin’s alleged correctness on immigration does not mitigate his wrongness on abortion.
Bishop Paprocki warned that if the award is ultimately given, “it will be a source of enormous scandal among both Catholics and the public at large. People will be understandably confused as to whether the Church is sincere in its opposition to abortion, as to whether the Church really views abortion as a matter of life and death, and as to whether the Church believes human dignity is really at stake.”
“Some Catholics may conclude that abortion is, at the end of the day, really not that important. They may conclude that some of the Church’s teaching can be safely ignored if one supports other policies that are consistent with the Church’s teachings on other matters, such as immigration,” he said.
Bishop James Wall of the Diocese of Gallup reposted Bishop Paprocki’s essay and publicly thanked him on X.
Thank you @BishopPaprocki https://t.co/rMQINQV6hR
“Man’s life comes from God; it is his gift, his image and imprint, a sharing in his breath of life. God therefore is the sole Lord of this life: man cannot do with it as he wills.” – JP II Evangelium Vitae (March, 1995).— Bishop Wall (@BishopWall) September 24, 2025
Durbin has complained in the past that being denied Communion means he has to “keep a lower profile” when attending unfamiliar churches, because “you just don’t quite know what kind of reaction you’re going to get from local clergy.” He claims to “rely on” the Catholic faith as “part of my life” and that “many of the things that I’ve learned over my years from my faith have become a part of my value system,” while decrying the idea of abortion as “the one take-it-or-leave-it issue for participating in Communion” as “fundamentally unfair.”
Despite the settled teachings of the Church on human life, liberal bishops have allowed Communion for many pro-abortion politicians, such as former President Joe Biden and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to continue in the United States. While in office, Biden claimed the late Pope Francis told him during a Vatican trip that “he was happy I was a good Catholic and I should keep receiving communion.”
