My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
October is Respect Life Month, which began this year with the announcement that Sen. Richard “Dick” Durbin (D-Illinois) had decided to decline a lifetime achievement award that the Archdiocese of Chicago had planned to give him on Nov. 3.
When the award was announced, I issued a statement on Sept. 19th saying, “I was shocked to learn that the Archdiocese of Chicago plans to honor Sen. Richard Durbin with a Lifetime Achievement Award through its Office of Human Dignity and Solidarity Immigration. Given Sen. 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.”
When it was announced that Sen. Durbin was not accepting the award, I issued a statement on Oct. 1st saying, “I am 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.”
In the arguments advanced in favor of the lifetime achievement award for Durbin, some areas of confusion became apparent that need clarification. One is the distinction between intrinsic evils like abortion and prudential judgments about how to deal with social issues such as immigration.
The Second Vatican Council said that “abortion and infanticide are unspeakable crimes” (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, n. 51). Pope John Paul II wrote that the “moral gravity of procured abortion is apparent in all its truth if we recognize that we are dealing with murder,” calling abortion “intrinsically illicit” (Evangelium Vitae, nn. 58 and 62). Pope Francis frequently compared abortion to hiring a mafia hitman.
On the other hand, as clearly and accurately described by Father Christopher Trummer elsewhere on these pages, policy decisions on how best to help immigrants are prudential judgments. Deportation is not intrinsically evil (i.e., morally wrong in all circumstances) and civil governments have the right — and at times the duty — to enforce immigration laws.
At the same time, Sacred Scripture and Catholic teaching uphold the dignity of every human being and urge compassion for those find it necessary to migrate when necessary to protect their life, dignity, or livelihood, as the Holy Family did when Jesus, Mary, and Joseph had to flee to Egypt when their lives were endangered by King Herod (see Matthew 2:13-15).
I spent a good deal of my years as a priest helping immigrants. In my first assignment as a priest, we had about 1,000 people attending the Spanish Mass every Sunday. When I was pastor of a large parish with many recent immigrants from Poland, we had about 3,000 people attending our Masses in Polish every Sunday. As a priest with a civil law degree, I co-founded the Chicago Legal Clinic to help provide legal services for the poor. My primary focus was immigration law, helping people to obtain legal status as lawful immigrants and citizens. When migrants are undocumented, they are vulnerable to unscrupulous employers who pay them below minimum way, threatening to call immigration authorities if they complain. The best way for immigrants to thrive in our country is to come here legally. Our immigration laws are in need of reform to address current realities more adequately.
A second area of confusion is the contradiction inherent in the statements of politicians who say, “I am personally opposed to abortion but do not want to impose my personal views on others.” The phoniness of that argument is apparent in that it is never invoked with regard to any other subject. You never hear a politician say, for example, “I am personally opposed to racism, but I do not want to impose my personal views on others.” Politicians run on campaign platforms that reflect their views, promising to promote those values legislatively if elected.
Shortly after his election as Supreme Pontiff, Pope Leo XIV said to the Vatican Diplomatic Corps on May 16 that “no one is exempted from striving to ensure respect for the dignity of every person, especially the most frail and vulnerable, from the unborn to the elderly, from the sick to the unemployed, citizens and immigrants alike.”
The third area of confusion is the misunderstanding and misuse of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin’s consistent ethic of life. For example, Steven P. Millies, professor of public theology at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, published an article in the Sept. 26, 2025 issue of the National Catholic Reporter bearing the title, “We can’t limit politicians’ worth — or the consistent life ethic — to abortion alone.” In it, he writes, “It simply strains believability that a consistent ethic of life nurtured in a pastoral letter of the U.S. bishops addressing nuclear war would insist that we focus on abortion to the exclusion of other threats to life.”
But no one who truly understands the consistent ethic of life is insisting that we focus on abortion to the exclusion of other threats to life. However, it is an inconsistent ethic of life to exclude concern for one key threat to life like abortion while promoting concern for other threats to life. Cardinal Bernardin said so himself in his 1983 Gannon Lecture at Fordham University in which he said, “The principle which structures both cases, war and abortion, needs to be upheld in both places. It cannot be successfully sustained on one count and simultaneously eroded in a similar situation. … I contend the viability of the principle depends upon the consistency of its application.” In an interview with the National Catholic Register in 1988, Cardinal Bernardin was asked if Catholic voters should disqualify candidates who don’t support a human life amendment. “Well, certainly,” he said. “That’s what the consistent life ethic is all about.”
From The Catholic Times, Springfield, Illinois
Catholics are hopelessly divided. We really are a messed up church.
Reply to messed up: The gates of hell will not prevail against the Catholic Church.
I think our Church has been in a “faithful vs. unfaithful,” ‘truthful vs. lying,” “good vs. evil,” God vs.the Devil” situation, since Vatican II. I don’t think there is really a so-called, “hopelessly divided, messed-up Church.” You either are a believing, practicing Catholic– or you are not. And I don’t think “ambiguous clerics” are “confused.” I think they are undisciplined, rebellious, cowardly, dishonest, deviant and diabolical– and heretical! — and they all have long needed to be kicked-out. We have had a severe crisis of Church leadership since the close of the Second Vatican Council.
Thank you Bishop Paprocki for defending the truth of the Catholic faith and teaching in such a clear and eloquent manner. The truth shell set you free. End Abortion Now! Adoption is the option.
The consistent ethic of life is a fallacious construction. That’s like saying the Church teaches a consistent ethic of Vatican 2. We should dump all references to the consistent ethic of life. It’s not a helpful nor meaningful moral guide. We are not required to preserve or defend life in all circumstances. Life is not the highest moral good. By allowing indirect, unwilled termination of pregnancies in cases of medical necessity to save the life of the mother, the Church is valuing the mother’s life higher than the gestating baby’s life. That’s not consistent; that’s a moral choice to value one more than the other. So, let’s just stop pretending or grandstanding that there is any such thing as a consistent ethic of life that we should aspire to uphold. We uphold the moral good. Full stop.
Bishop Paprocki is an outstanding, faithful Catholic bishop. What is needed is for the Pope and College of Cardinals at the Vatican– and all clerical leaders— to stop playing games with Vatican II excuses. They need to return to good Church discipline, and upholding Catholic teaching, worldwide. A parish church, a Catholic school, a Catholic university or seminary– must uphold the sacred teachings of the Catholic Faith– everywhere in the world. All clergy and nuns and volunteer or paid laymen serving the Church must faithfully uphold Catholic teaching. I have said this since the late 1960s, when the Church started to fall to pieces.
The purpose of being a politician is to oppose your views on others.
In an age of “studied ambiguity,” about which Pope Benedict warned us, it is good to see clear thinking and teaching.
I’m just not sure that Bishop Paprocki is hammering anything. He is simply speaking truth into confusion.
May we listen and may all our shepherds speak the truth, with love.
The Church is too much like Congress: two political parties vying for control.
Mass was terribly boring this evening. I don’t know why bishops are fighting with each other about abortion when they need to seriously fix the way Mass is celebrated in parishes. The lady who was the cantor sounded like a screeching cat. Nobody in the pews sings, they just all listen to the bad music from the piano player and cantor and suffer through it. The homily was about how great Shohei Ohtani’s game was yesterday (the pastor is a big Dodger fan) and how we could do great things for God like Moses through prayer, that we could be hitting home runs for God if we wanted. We just need to be persistent like the widow in the Gospel story. Ohtani had to wait for his moment, and so do we but prayer will help bring it about. Really? is this what Catholicism has sunk to now? And the bishops are fighting about abortion? Clean up the parishes. Holy moly things are bad.
Why not try an early, solemn Mass with few worshippers, and either no music, or very quiet sacred music? Or try a Latin Tridentine Mass, approved by your bishop (if it is available to you)?? Don’t give up. Ask God to guide you to the Mass He wants you to attend.
Cupich has a video about immigrants you should all watch. He also has an article about how the liturgical reform made the Mass more for the poor people. Maybe he’ll be the next pope.
Reply to papabile: God help us.