When Cardinal Blase Cupich moved to bestow a lifetime “Keep Hope Alive” award upon Senator Dick Durbin, a legislator who has supported abortion, the “Cupichgate” scandal quickly crystallised into a vivid moral puzzle for American Catholics: Why, many asked, would a shepherd honour one whose public record on the most elemental question of human life sits at odds with Church teaching?
The affair only intensified when Senator Durbin, bowing to the pressure of episcopal and lay protest, declined the accolade while Pope Leo XIV intervened publicly, appearing to argue – in a way that could be interpreted that his points were also addressed to the critics of Cupich and Durbin – that someone who opposes abortion yet endorses the death penalty “is not really pro-life”.
