Honor the Honorable. . .

The job of the Church is to honor those who honor the faith.  The job of the Church is not to honor those who do good things with one hand and things which conflict with the faith by the other hand.  At least that is my narrow view of things.  Perhaps it is outdated and old fashioned but it makes a mockery of the Church when anyone other than an individual who has confessed the faith receives some sort of commendation.

That said, Rome, apparently, has a different opinion.  The already rather notoriously liberal Cardinal of Chicago, Cupich, has offended in a variety of ways and seems to delight in turning a blind eye to what Rome has stood for in order to curry political or cultural favor.  It was his intent to bestow an award on Sen. Durbin of Illinois. The Archbishop of Chicago, Blase Cardinal Cupich, was to bestow a lifetime achievement award on Sen. Richard Durbin through the archdiocese’s office of human dignity and solidarity at their November 3 fundraiser at St. Ignatius College Prep.  Durbin is Roman Catholic, according to his own insistence, but also one who has deviated from Roman Catholic teaching on a variety of subjects including abortion.  Pope Leo said, “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.”  Durbin disagrees and yet he is seen as fit to be honored as an honorable Roman Catholic man.  I am certainly not in any position to tell Rome what should be done but it is worth noting that it is precisely an inconsistency like this that undermines Rome's stand and its integrity on an issue so central as the sacredness of life from conception to natural death.

Durbin is not even within Cupich's diocese nor does he fall within his pastoral care.  That might be a topic for another day but it illustrates the blatant desire for political and cultural relevance over the concern for faithful witness and confession.  I am in no place to render judgment upon the soul of Richard Durbin but that does not mean that we who confess the sacredness of life when it comes to the unborn should refrain from signalling our discontent when an honor is bestowed upon a dishonorable person.  While we have come to expect such things from Roman Catholic institutions, remember the honor bestowed upon then NY Governor Andrew Cuomo by Notre Dame, it does not make it any more palatable when churches compromise their doctrine and faith in order to curry such cultural or political favor.  

Oddly enough, there was a time when Durbin was actually the pro-life choice and the Republican was pro-choice.  On January 17, 1982, then candidate Richard J. Durbin was the master of ceremonies for the Springfield Right to Life committee’s annual March for Life event in the Illinois capital. He won and was, for a short time anyway, a self-proclaimed supporter of the right to life.  He was on record opposing abortion on demand and in favor of overturning Roe v Wade -- at least until 1985.  Then he voted against a provision to the Equal Rights Amendment that specified that abortions not be funded by the taxpayer, failed to support the Kemp-Kasten Amendment, which would have excluded groups performing or referring for abortions from receiving federal funding, and finally introduced the Durbin Amendment to require groups to perform abortions in order to be eligible for any federal funding funding. By 2023, his personal reticence seems to have gone completely, “Abortion is a fundamental right.”

Leo, of course, has his own problem with elevating people who have demurred from Roman Catholic teaching to positions of power and leadership.  Consider how Francis gutted the Institute for the Family created by John Paul II by naming Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia as its head or the scandal when he named Archbishop Victor Fernandez as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith -- someone previously more known for steamy and sultry comments than catechesis.  Honor the honorable with recognition and with leadership and do not experiment with people whose track record is uncertain at best or flawed at worst.  Now it seems, the opposition of some bishops, the behind the scenes reluctance of others, the news this has created, the conflict that has ensued made it impossible for Cupich to withdraw his offer but Durbin at least knew enough to decline it.  That is one more example of a political way out of a problem that should not have arisen in the first place

By the way, Lutherans are not exempt from their own problems here either.  There have been cases in our own past when we preferred the illusion of access to power as when one of our own is elected or appointed to high office but then tends to overlook or ignore inconvenient teaching.  So this is not for Rome only.  It is also for Lutherans.  We should honor the honorable whose life and witness has not compromised doctrine and faith and leave it at that.  Not to mention the audacity of giving a living person a lifetime achievement award while that person still has time to renege on even more of the faith for political expediency.  It would not have cost Cupich a dime to skip over Durbin and honor someone else worthy of such recognition.  To withdraw the honor now would cost Cupich everything and making him appear either weak or a coward.  I am not saying he is neither except to say that once announced it is nearly impossible for him to reverse himself and deny Durbin the award no matter what the Senator from Illinois might say or do.  And that is the problem.