The US bishops are visibly divided over the issue of Catholic politicians and abortion.
Cardinal
Blase Cupich of Chicago, after breaking ranks and conference policy by
offering a lifetime achievement award to Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois
last month, drew criticism from across the episcopal map, before the
senator stepped back from the plans yesterday.
The
cardinal then issued a lament about division both within civil society
and the Church, and called for a round of synodal meetings. This was
followed today by a previously scheduled reflection on polarization from
the USCCB president, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, on the anniversary of
Pope Francis’ document Frattelli Tutti.
As
all this was happening, the pope gave an off-the-cuff answer to a
question about the situation, the subtext of which is now being fiercely
litigated by Catholics online.
So far, the situation will strike many American Catholics as distinctly familiar — deja vu, even.
But,
of course, the situation is different. Leo XIV is the pope now, not
Francis. And while the pope prefaced his remarks on Tuesday by saying he
wasn’t up to speed on all the details, the first American pope, a
Chicagoan no less, cannot be expected to remain so for very long.
And,
with the US bishops’ conference set to gather next month for their
first business meeting since Leo’s election, what happens next seems
sure to set the terms and tone of episcopal discourse for the
foreseeable future.
Superficially,
the fracas over the now-aborted award from the Chicago archdiocese for a
committed “pro-choice” politician will have struck many Church watchers
as a near-repeat over recent disputes among the bishops over figures
like former-New York governor Andrew Cuomo, former president Joe Biden,
and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi — even down to the question about
the reception of Communion and who the responsible diocesan bishop is.
Similarly,
the pope’s remarks — noting that “pro-life” is a designation defined by
more than just opposition to abortion — have kicked off a familiar
round of discussions about the preeminence of the killing of the unborn
as a social issue versus the importance of neither dismissing nor
minimizing other issues of fundamental human dignity, like the death
penalty and the treatment of immigrant communities.
But looking
past the familiar chords of the news cycle, several important things
have changed since the election of Leo, though it is not yet clear what
their lasting significance or eventual resolution will be.
The
initial statement criticizing Cardinal Cupich’s decision to offer a
lifetime achievement award to Durbin came from the senator’s home bishop
in Springfield, Bishop Thomas Paprocki.
Given Durbin has been for
years barred from the Eucharist there over his legislative record and
public statements, and given Paprocki’s known disposition to speak his
mind forthrightly, the bishop’s opening comments were, if not
predictable, not especially surprising. But what followed was a marked
departure from past similar cases.
For a start, unlike a pastoral
assessment of an individual’s suitability to receive Communion, Cupich’s
offer of an archdiocesan award to a famously pro-abortion politician
appeared in obvious contravention of a clear conference policy on such
matters.
Of course, USCCB policies aren’t law, and cannot bind
bishops beyond their standing moral commitment to act in solidarity
along agreed lines.
But Cupich’s decision to first announce the
award for Durbin and then double-down on defending it as a form of
“dialogue” appears to have triggered a much broader and deeper wave of
criticism and resentment among his colleagues, prompting public
statements from some unlikely conference members, alongside more
habitual commenters.
Moreover, as The Pillar
reported, scores of bishops called and wrote to the conference
president privately, demanding some public reassertion of its policy —
with a statement having been prepared, vetted through the apostolic
nunciature, and ready for release at the time Durbin decided to decline
the award.
In his own public statement announcing Durbin’s
decision, Cupich made a heartfelt call for unity and for mutual respect
and dialogue, while stressing that “it would be wrong to interpret the
decisions regarding the [event and Durbin’s nomination as honoree] as a
softening of our position on abortion.”
The cardinal’s call for
recognizing political polarization within the Church, and his stated
openness to real, respectful mutual dialogue could yet prove a
significant starting point for real conversations.
Nevertheless,
for many bishops, Cupich’s controversial move wasn’t having a different
opinion about a sensitive subject, but appearing to flout a commonly
agreed norm on how to engage that subject.
To some, at least, the
cardinal appeared to be stress-testing the bishops’ willingness and
ability to come together around their own policies.
Given Durbin’s
decision to decline the award before the USCCB could speak on the
matter, and given that Cupich has made no concessions to the
unsuitability of the nomination in the first place, that issue remains,
for some at least, unresolved.
Another key difference between the current controversy and previous iterations is, of course, the Leonine factor.
Under Pope Francis, figures like Cardinal Cupich — indeed Cupich especially — were comfortable asserting a kind of de facto role as chief papal interpreter, if not outright spokesman, on domestic American affairs.
This
reality led sometimes to serious clashes between the conference
leadership and the cardinal, but also to a general hesitancy among
individuals to challenge soi dissant “Pope Francis bishops and cardinals” too directly or too publicly. That hesitancy appears to have dissipated.
And,
less remarked upon than the breadth of criticism of Cupich over the
Durbin controversy, but perhaps equally remarkable, was the lack of
bishops coming to the cardinal’s defence as it unfolded.
There is
as yet no clear “voice of Leo” among the U.S. bishops, and given the
American pope may naturally find it easier to make his own mind known on
domestic affairs, there may not be one. That in itself could seriously
alter the dynamics among the conference.
What tone Leo chooses to
strike, and encourage his American brothers to echo, remains to be seen —
but the traditional papal greeting to open the conferences’ meeting
next month will be closely scrutinized.
Between then and now,
however, the significance of Leo’s comments on the Durbin debate will
certainly be picked over and spun in opposite directions.
When
questioned about the nomination of an archdiocesan award for the
senator, the pope noted he wasn’t “terribly familiar with the particular
case” but understood the “difficulty and the tensions” while saying the
“overall work” a politician has done over decades should also be looked
at.
The pope then pivoted to reiterating that “pro-life” is not
merely an interchangeable term with “anti-abortion,” and that
politicians who champion the death penalty or support the inhuman
treatment of migrants are also not pro-life, even if they oppose
abortion.
It’s not entirely clear if Leo was endorsing Cardinal
Cupich’s rationale of awards-as-dialogue while noting the same
difficulties and tensions arise with other politicians over other life
issues, or if he was warning against such endorsements across the
political aisle. Both possibilities have been argued already.
Others
have expressed regret that Leo appeared to brush past the issue of
abortion all together and immediately turn to issues like the death
penalty and immigration, with a fringe few insisting this was tantamount
to moral equivocation and proof of papal indifference.
Of course,
for many — perhaps not least Leo himself — the pope’s unqualified
horror at abortion might be taken as stipulated. But the reality is a
new pope who kept a relatively low profile as a bishop and cardinal does
not have a reservoir of past public statements with which listeners can
contextualize his comments.
Pope Francis, for example, might have
given the same answer as Leo to a similar question, but it would have
been framed by his having repeatedly described abortion as murder,
abortionists as contract killers, and the abortion agenda as Nazi-like
eugenics.
Leo, as yet, has not set the rhetorical levels for how
he thinks and speaks about many moral issues. Until he has, Catholics
will impute his words with their own expectations and assumptions, and
at least some with their prejudices, too.
What seems certain is
that, as the US bishops continue to work through the fallout of the
Durbin debate, Leo will soon become “terribly familiar with the
particular case” even if he might wish he didn’t have to. What is not
certain is whom he listens to on the particulars.
It might yet
prove to be Cardinal Cupich, of course, or a different one of the
American cardinals, none of whom publicly came to Cupich’s side during
the debate. The pope might also choose to take the temperature of the
conference leadership directly, which would be a marked change from the
Francis era.
Leo seems sure, though, to hear from his soon-to-be
outgoing nuncio in Washington, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, who turns 80
years old in January. Pierre enjoys the distinction of having had a
strained and sometimes fractious relationship with both the USCCB and
with Cardinal Cupich over the years of his tenure, and he is perhaps
uniquely placed to offer the pope a balanced assessment of the current
situation.
Where Leo eventually lands, and how active a voice he
wants to have in American ecclesiastical affairs remains to be seen. But
what seems certain is that however familiar the current situation might
feel, things are not the same as they were for anyone involved.
