BREAKING: Pope Leo Defends Pro-Choice Chicago Politician, Says "Pro-Life" is More Than Abortion

After right-wing bishops attacked him, Leo backs Chicago Cardinal Cupich and widens the pro-life conversation beyond one issue

Late last week, Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich announced his archdiocese would honor Illinois Senator Dick Durbin with a lifetime achievement award for his decades of work on immigration.

Durbin is barred from communion in his home diocese of Springfield by his bishop because of his pro‑choice voting record, so Cupich’s decision enraged some on the Catholic right.

By Monday evening, ten bishops — including Springfield’s Thomas Paprocki, San Francisco’s Salvatore Cordileone, and Nebraska’s James Conley — had publicly urged Cupich to reverse course.

Retired Archbishop Joseph Naumann called the award a “source of scandal” and insisted that dialogue with politicians doesn’t require “giving awards to Catholic political leaders who disregard…the right to life of the unborn”.

Cupich defended his plan by citing a 2022 instruction from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that bishops should engage Catholic politicians, but the right‑wing pressure grew; by Tuesday, he had cancelled meetings with Illinois bishops.

Pope Leo XIV responds to EWTN

As he left Castel Gandolfo, reporters — led by an EWTN journalist — asked Pope Leo XIV if a cardinal should honor a pro‑choice politician.

The Holy Father answered that he wasn’t familiar with every detail but urged Americans to evaluate Durbin’s forty‑year record “in its totality.”

He reminded the crowd that Catholic teaching encompasses many issues: “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… I don’t know if that’s pro‑life.”

In other words, the pope defended Cupich’s broader assessment and reiterated the Church’s consistent ethic of life.

Rather than rebuking anyone, Leo called for humility and patience: these issues are “complex,” he said, and no one holds “all the truth.”

Instead, we should “have respect for one another” and search together—“as American citizens… and Catholics” — for a way forward

Right‑wing pushback and the MAGA divide

The reaction will likely reveal a widening divide between Leo’s pastoral vision and MAGA Catholicism.

Conservative influencers like Michael Knowles openly defend capital punishment; last week, he said executing a murderer constituted “justice” and invoked St. Paul’s letter to the Romans.

Yet, Church teaching, clarified by Popes John Paul II and Francis, holds that the death penalty is “inadmissible” because it violates human dignity.

Meanwhile, human‑rights advocates note that Donald Trump’s second‑term executive orders resumed “blistering” attacks on immigrants; they condemn his policies as an “overtly adversarial” approach that unleashed a “torrent of inhumane attacks on asylum seekers” and separated families . When Leo says pro‑life Catholics cannot support the death penalty or mistreat immigrants, he is implicitly rejecting positions championed by Trump and his media allies. No wonder some MAGA bishops bristled.

A call to unity

In this publication and throughout my career in public life, I have often warned that American Catholics risk reducing our faith to a single issue.

Pope Leo XIV’s intervention should remind us that the Gospel calls for a consistent defense of life — from the unborn child to the prisoner on death row and the family at our border.

He did not dismiss the issue of abortion. Rather, he insisted that we cannot excuse other grave injustices.

In doing so, the pope broke with the partisan spirit of our age and challenged us to do likewise. The path forward is not more scandal, more petitions, or more talking points.

It is, as he said, to respect one another and to search together for the truth. In a moment of heated controversy, Leo gave us a model of civility and an invitation to build a Church and society that is truly pro‑life from womb to tomb.

To honor the wishes of our Holy Father, dignity, respect, and unity are three values we will always try to carry forward in this publication.

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