Chicago Archbishop Presses Moral Equivalency of Abortion to Other Issues, by Thomas D. Williams

Chicago archbishop Blase Cupich has once again downplayed the centrality of abortion as moral and political issue, insisting it must be seen as just one element of “a consistent ethic of life.”

In an op-ed Wednesday in Chicago Catholic, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Chicago, Cardinal Cupich repeated arguments against prioritizing the abortion issue when considering “how our faith should inform our politics and our voting decisions.”

Recently, the cardinal faced off against leaders of the U.S. bishops conference who insisted that the faithful must understand that abortion is the “preeminent priority” when decided on whom to vote for. Having lost that battle, the cardinal wrote his own op-ed to keep pushing the idea that abortion is no worse than any other social issue.

On average, over 2,700 unborn children are executed in the womb every day in the United States. One can only wonder what Cardinal Cupich would say if 2,700 migrants were rounded up and dismembered on a daily basis. Would this become a preeminent issue, or would he insist that it must be contextualized and balanced against other social issues?

To back up his argument, Cardinal Cupich cited a former archbishop of Chicago, the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who is credited with creating the “seamless garment” moral theory, which approached all social evils as part of a unitary whole rather than addressing them individually. ….