When he delivers his farewell speech to the U.S. Senate at the end of 2026, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., will cap off a long career in Congress.
He where he was elected to the House in 1982 and the Senate in 1996.
He might be remembered as the lawmaker who led the charge to end cigarette smoking on airplanes. Or his passionate advocacy for the children of people who entered the U.S. illegally.
Or for insisting on more funding for Amtrak.
But what we in the anti-abortion community will remember about Durbin is his devotion to the abortion industry.
He voted against a bill to protect babies from the brutality of a partial-birth abortion and another to protect them from dismemberment abortion.
He voted against advancing a bill to mandate life-saving care for newborns who survive an abortion, saying it "targets and intimidates reproductive healthcare providers."
He even voted against a bill to make it a federal crime to harm an unborn child while committing another crime.
Durbin might care deeply about planes, trains, and migrants, but he has no heart whatsoever for the most vulnerable Americans.
The senator also doesn't seem to care much about his Catholic faith because defense of the unborn is one of the pre-eminent priorities of the Catholic Church, both in the U.S. and globally.
This indifference both to the unborn and the Church make it doubly puzzling — and twice as outrageous — that Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich planned to honor Durbin with a lifetime achievement award at a November fund-raiser.
In recent days, Durbin declined the award because of the public backlash that ensued.
Several bishops came out publicly against Cupich's plan.
Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., noted that Durbin, while living within that diocese, had been barred from receiving communion because of his abortion advocacy. San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore.
Cordileone, who has publicly corrected Nancy Pelosi, who is in his archdiocese, said "clarity" of Catholic teaching is at risk. Nebraska Bishop James Conley said he hopes Cupich changes his mind and avoids "the scandal it will likely cause the faithful."
Cardinal Cupich seems tone-deaf to all of this.
In his public statement, he strains commonsense by completely glazing over the fact that this is not just about "the full range of issues."
Rather, it's about the full range of pain, distress, and disillusionment experienced by numerous believers of all denominations who make sacrifices each day to live their faith — and its anti-abortion demands — and then see politicians throw those teachings out the window and get rewarded nevertheless from the very church whose anti-abortion teaching they despise.
Cardinal Cupich writes to his audience "as your pastor."
It's time he acted like one.
In 2004, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement, "Catholics in Political Life," clearly declaring the following:
"The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions."
Durbin did not just "disagree" with the church on abortion. He took legislative action to advance the killing of children in the womb.
The fact that abortion is violence has nothing to do with one's religious affiliation.
Supporting it is not only against Catholic teaching; it’s against the meaning of public service, and against human decency and the principles of civilized society.
I’ve asked Priests for Life’s supporters to sign a petition at ProLifePetition.com about this matter. Even though Durbin won’t get the award, too many clerics still don’t get why he shouldn’t. The people of God need to speak up about it.
Even Pope Leo XIV gave the tired, old, misleading response about "looking at many issues" when asked about this matter.
Time to take another look at St. John Paul II’s declaration in "Christifideles Laici" in which he declared, "The common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights --- for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture --- is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination." (n. 38).
Every life is equal, but not every attack on life is equal.
Abortion is not the only form of violence, but it attacks the very foundation of every other right we have.
It's also time we open our eyes to the truth about the Democratic party, where Durbin’s abortion advocacy was nurtured and allowed to flourish.
Whether on the part of bishops or anyone else, the time for supporting, encouraging, or justifying Democratic politicians is over.
The Democratic Party has unapologetically embraced a holocaust against the unborn. They deserve neither awards nor votes.
(A related story may be found here.)
Frank Pavone is an anti-abortion leader and national director of Priests for Life. Read Frank Pavone Reports — More Here.
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