By Anne Hendershott, Crisis Magazine, September 26, 2025
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ guilty silence regarding a U.S. Cardinal’s decision to honor an extreme pro-abortion politician risks inviting divine judgment upon the nation.
For faithful Catholics, the news that yet another pro-abortion politician is being celebrated by the liberal-leaning ecclesial authorities of their own Church is discouraging. Their sorrow is not just because Chicago’s Cardinal Blase Cupich has decided to grant a “Lifetime Achievement Award” to 80-year-old Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL)—a Catholic politician who has devoted his career to championing abortion access at every turn. It is also because of the deafening silence from nearly all of the bishops throughout the country. For Catholics who believe the Church must speak truth to power, this moment feels like abandonment.
Aside from a handful of courageous bishops, the 430 active and retired bishops who participate in the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have remained publicly silent while one of their own honors a politician whose 100 percent pro-abortion voting score in 2024 from the Planned Parenthood Action Fund stands in direct opposition to the Church’s pro-life teachings. There has been no collective challenge, no visible dissent, and no public defense of the unborn from the episcopate.
Cardinal Cupich must know—as all faithful Catholics have known for decades—that Sen. Durbin could be counted on for voting in favor of the most radical abortion policies. Most recently, on January 22, 2025, Durbin voted against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act which would require medical intervention for infants who survive an attempted abortion. Later in the year, Durbin voted against defunding Planned Parenthood. The previous July, Durbin voted in favor of the Reproductive Freedom for Women Act. And two years earlier, Durbin supported late-term abortion by voting against the Kennedy Amendment 3758 which would have banned abortion after 20 weeks.