John Breen, a Loyola University Chicago law professor who has served on CCI’s board since 2012, will be off the board after the group’s upcoming March 20 meeting, the Register has learned.
An informed source confirmed to the Register that the move is linked to Breen’s September 2025 criticism of the Chicago cardinal’s intention to honor Sen. Dick Durbin at an archdiocesan gala.
When reached by the Register and asked if leaving the board was his decision, Breen said “No” and provided no further comment.
In a written response to the Register’s inquiry about Breen not being retained as a board member, the CCI cited changes to its governance procedures.
“We recognize the sacrifice of time and talent each member makes and have amended our governance to require a staggered membership cycle of board members,” the CCI said.
The organization, which serves as the Catholic Church’s public-policy voice in Illinois, said the change will allow for a mix of transition and continuity among board members, adding that “two of our longest-serving members” will be rotating off after seven two-year terms. The Register confirmed independently that Michael Fitzgerald, an accountant based in the Diocese of Springfield, is the other lay board member whose tenure is ending.
According to a copy of CCI’s bylaws obtained by the Register, which were amended in 2023, six lay leaders are to be selected by Illinois’ diocesan ordinaries for “two-year terms” and can come from any diocese. However, neither term limits nor a staggered membership cycle are mentioned in the bylaws, nor does it appear they have previously been enforced.
In fact, a source familiar with the development who was granted anonymity to speak freely, told the Register that Breen’s criticism of Cardinal Cupich prompted CCI leadership to begin reviewing enforcement of lay board member terms in the first place, leading to Breen’s nonrenewal.
The source confirmed that “conference leadership” was upset with Breen “because of what he said to the public,” which was viewed as the layman “speaking out of turn.”
It is unclear who exactly was involved in the decision to enforce term limits only now or to select Breen and Fitzgerald specifically from among CCI’s lay advisory board members for nonrenewal. When asked for comment on Breen’s departure, Bishop Thomas Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, told the Register he had no first-hand knowledge of the decision because “the CCI board has not discussed this yet.”
According to the organization’s bylaws, Cardinal Cupich, as the current archbishop of Chicago, is the de facto head of the CCI. While a decision to remove a lay member from the board would require a majority vote of Illinois’s six diocesan ordinaries, according to the bylaws, it is not clear whether enforcing membership terms requires a similar vote.
The Archdiocese of Chicago did not respond to a request for comment.
Criticism of Award
In September, Breen told the Register that Cardinal Cupich’s plan to honor Durbin risked undermining CCI’s advocacy and called Durbin, who has pushed to codify abortion access into federal law, a “poster child for the ‘inconsistent ethic of life.’”
“All of our work is premised upon the dignity of the human person,” Breen had said. “And yet you are going to honor a man who denies the dignity of a whole class of persons? It makes no sense.”
Breen’s public comments came after CCI leadership had canceled a regularly scheduled Sept. 25 board meeting after the lay leader had requested that discussion of the Durbin award be added to the agenda.
Ten of Cardinal Cupich’s fellow bishops also publicly criticized the decision to fête Durbin, including Bishop Paprocki, who had previously barred the pro-abortion-rights senator from receiving Holy Communion in his diocese. Durbin eventually declined the award shortly after Pope Leo XIV weighed in on the controversy.
A graduate of Harvard Law School, Breen is an expert on Catholic social teaching and Catholic legal thought. A resident of the Diocese of Joliet, he is the author of A Light Unseen: A History of Catholic Legal Education and has written articles applying Catholic teaching to abortion law, economics and academic freedom.
In its statement, the CCI expressed gratitude for its departing board members.