This Did Not Just Happen, part two

Blase Cupich is taking a good deal of justified criticism from a handful of “conservative” “bishops” within the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism because of his decision to bestow a “social justice” award upon the fully pro-abortion, pro-sodomy Richard Durbin, who is the senior United States Senator from the State of Illinois, having first been elected on Tuesday, November 5, 1996, over a pro-life Republican, Illinois State Senator Albert J. Salvi.

Apart from refusing to support any piece of legislation seeking to restrict baby-killing, Durbin has worked overtime to intimidate Al Salvi after the 1996 election and worked with the notorious Lois Lerner, then employed by the Federal Election Commission, to get Salvi fined for campaign finance violations that he never committed, a prelude to his asking Lerner in 2010, then with the Internal Revenue Service, to slow walk applications for non-profit tax-exempt status being submitted by conservative organizations that were affiliated in one way or another with Taxed Enough Already Party movement:

CHICAGO - The IRS scandal may have its roots in Illinois politics. Specifically, the 1996 U.S. Senate race between Democrat Congressman Dick Durbin and conservative Republican State Rep. Al Salvi.

More than a decade before his 2010 letter to IRS officials urging the agency to target conservative organizations, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin's political career crossed paths with Ms. Lerner when she was head of the Enforcement Division of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), and directly involved in the 1996 Illinois U.S. Senate race.

Soon after the IRS story broke, Al Salvi told Illinois Review that it was IRS official Lois Lerner who represented the FEC in the 1996 Democrat complaint against him. According to Salvi, Lerner was, without question, politically motivated, and went so far as to make him an offer: "Promise me you will never run for office again, and we'll drop this case."

Salvi declined her offer. In fact he ran for Illinois Secretary of State in 1998.

But when he saw Lerner plead the Fifth Amendment before Congress last week, he recognized her. "That's the woman," Salvi said. "And I didn't plead the Fifth like she did."

In 2000, a federal judge dismissed the FEC case against him, clearing Salvi's name and reputation.

Now with the revelations about Lerner, the IRS, and the intriguing connection to Durbin, Salvi shared with Illinois Review his experience with Lois Lerner.

The 1996 FEC Complaint against Salvi

During the last several weeks of the 1996 Illinois U.S. Senate campaign, two FEC complaints were filed against Salvi - one by Illinois Democrats about the way he reported a loan he made to himself, and another by the Democratic Senatorial Committee about a reported business donation.

Salvi made a personal loan to his campaign for $1.1 million to fund the last campaign ads in the expensive Chicago television ad market. News of that loan and the filed FEC complaint dominated Chicago media headlines towards the end of the campaign, suffocating the life out of Salvi's threatening momentum.

"We couldn't get our message out because day after day, the media carried story after story about the FEC complaint," Salvi told Illinois Review in an exclusive interview.

After Salvi lost to Durbin, he was left to face the FEC complaints. The Commission alleged that the Salvi committee:

Reported bank loans to Mr. Salvi as personal loans from the candidate, never identifying the source of the funds;

Failed to report debts to the candidate;

Failed to file 48-hour notices for personal advances from the candidate; and

Failed to disclose campaign-related payments by the candidate to vendors and a bank.

A federal district court dismissed the case against Salvi in 1999, and the FEC appealed it to the 7th U.S. District Court of Appeals.

The FBI was called in at one point to gather evidence on the case. According to Salvi, two FBI agents unexpectedly visited the Salvis' home, and interrogated his elderly mother about her $2,000 check to her son's campaign and where she got "that kind of money."

Salvi says he saw the visits as nothing but intimidation, making it clear the FEC intended to use his case as a example to others.

At the same time, Salvi said, other conservative groups such as the Christian Coalition were besieged by the FEC demands. One time, representatives from several investigated conservative groups even convened on a conference call to compare notes on how the Clinton Administration was scouring their organizations' financial and activity records.

In fact, Salvi's case (and name) was highlighted as an example several times in the FEC's monthly publication until the case was finally dismissed in 2000.

It was while dealing with the FEC complaint that Salvi says he first met Lois Lerner, then the head of the FEC Enforcement Division.

During one conversation with Lerner, she offered a deal Salvi says he'll never forget, and neither will his brother and attorney, Mike Salvi.

"She said, 'If you promise to never run for office again, we'll drop this case,'" Salvi recalled.

At the time, Salvi said, he figured it was probably just Dick Durbin's way of getting him out of politics.

Salvi said he refused Lerner's offer because he knew he had done nothing wrong and wanted to leave the door open for future campaigns. In 1998, Salvi ran for Illinois Secretary of State while the 1996 FEC case against him continued.

Nearly four years and a hundred thousand dollars in legal fees later, federal judge George Lindbergh dismissed the FEC case against him, leaving the FEC attorney Lois Lerner -- who was present and actively arguing before the judge -- shocked.

"The judge said to Lerner, 'Let me get this straight - Mr. Salvi loaning himself money is legal, and you have no complaint against that, is that right?'" Salvi said. "Ms. Lerner agreed. Then the judge said, 'You just don't like the way his attorneys filled out the report?' Lerner agreed."

Case dismissed, the judge said shaking his head and pounding his gavel, as Lerner objected.

"We never lose!" Lerner said to Salvi afterwards.

Despite all the Democrats' efforts, Salvi never paid the FEC a dollar in fines or penalties.

Congressional Hearings On IRS Scandal

Salvi, now 53, said when he saw Lerner on television last week, those FEC hearings all came back to his memory -- 13 years later. "I didn't plead the Fifth," Salvi said.

And the taxpayers had no choice but to pay for Lerner's legal trial that lasted for over four years.

Durbin Asks IRS For Help in 2010

After the U.S. Supreme Court decided the Citizens United case, many incumbent politicians became concerned about the activities of organizations like Crossroads GPS, which had announced it would be running issue ads against Illinois' Democrat candidate for U.S. Senate Alexi Giannoulias, who was campaigning to succeed Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate.

In October 2010, Durbin wrote IRS Commissioner Shulman about the tax exemption status of Crossroads - a job that would find its way to IRS official Lois Lerner.

I write to urge the Internal Revenue Service to examine the purpose and primary activities of several 501(c)(4) organizations that appear to be in violation of the law.

One organization whose activities appear to be inconsistent with its tax status is Crossroads GPS, organized as a (c)(4) entity in June. The group has spent nearly $20 million on television advertising specific to Senate campaigns this year. If this political activity is indeed the primary activity of the organization, it raises serious questions about the organization's compliance with the Internal Revenue Code.

Other 2010 letters to the IRS with similar requests from elected officials may be included in four Congressional investigations now scheduled to take place in the next few weeks.

Salvi says it will be interesting to see how Lois Lerner, Dick Durbin, the FEC, IRS, and Illinois politics intersect as these investigations continue. (Lerner intrigue goes back to '96 Durbin/ Salvi.)

Unfortunately for Mr. Salvi, however, he did knuckle under to the then Chairman of the Republican National Senatorial Campaign Committee after he had told him to quit talking about abortion or lose the committee's financial support. Oh, yes, you want the name of that individual? I will happily give it to you as it is none other than the now-former United States Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato (R-New York), against whom I ran, unsuccessfully, of course, for the senatorial nomination of the Right to Life Party of the State of New York in 1998. (See Blood Money Talks Loud And Clear, part two, for details.)

Richard Durbin also played the role of the penultimate demagogue when he grilled a woman who had been nominated to serve on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit:

The religious convictions of one of President Donald Trump’s appeals court nominees featured prominently during a Wednesday confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The two nominees evaluated during the hearing, Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larsen and Notre Dame Law School Professor Amy Coney Barrett, are nominees to federal appeals courts based in Cincinnati, Ohio and Chicago, Ill. Barrett is a Roman Catholic who has previously written about faith in public life and spoken to Christian legal groups in her capacity as an academic.

A coalition of leftwing groups, including the Alliance for Justice (AFJ), allege that Barrett has advocated prioritizing religious views over established case law when the two conflict in her professional publications.

“Stunningly, Barrett has asserted that judges should not follow the law or the Constitution when it conflicts with their personal religious beliefs,” AFJ claims. Legal academics have strongly disputed this characterization of her position.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the ranking Democrat on the panel, signaled sympathy with those concerns, and referenced a law review article that Barrett wrote in 1998 entitled “Catholic Judges in Capital Cases,” which appeared in the Marquette Law Review. Barrett concluded that a Catholic trial judge who is a conscientious objector to the death penalty should recuse himself if asked to enter an order of execution against a convict.

During Wednesday’s hearing, Barrett emphasized that the set of circumstances considered in the article were narrow, and that she participated in death penalty cases as a law clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court, but Feinstein remained unpersuaded.

“When you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you,” Feinstein said of Barrett’s writings regarding the professional obligations of Catholic practitioners. “And that’s of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for years in this country.”

“It is never appropriate for a judge to apply their personal convictions, whether it derives from faith or personal conviction,” Barrett said in response to those objections.

She added that she wrote the article 20 years ago as a third year law student in conjunction with a professor, and that she was the junior partner in the project.

Other Democrats were equally forthright in their questioning.

“Ms. Barrett, I think your article is very plain in your perspective about the role of religion for judges, and particularly with regard to Catholic judges,” said Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, who shared Feinstein’s concerns.

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois took issue with Barrett’s use of the term “orthodox Catholics” as it appears in her article, to the extent that it brands Catholics who do not hold certain positions on capital punishment or abortion as heretical.

“Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?” Durbin asked.

“If you’re asking whether I’m a faithful Catholic, I am, although I would stress that my own personal church affiliation or my religious belief would not bear on the discharge of my duties as a judge,” Barrett replied.

Durbin said that some individuals who embrace the term have criticized Pope Francis for alleged deviations from Catholic orthodoxy, prompting Barrett to express her admiration for the pontiff. (http://dailyNominee's Religious Faith Dominates Senate Judicial Confirmation Hearing.)

There are a number of salient points that I want to make, and I will do them as concisely as possible.

First, as I had noted in early-2017 when a Protestant, Russell Vought, was questioned by the atheistic United State Senator Bernard John Sanders (D-People’s Liberation State of Vermont), about his support for Wheaton College’s suspension of a professor who said that Mohammedans have a “relationship with God,” which, of course, they do not, adherents of the false opposite of the naturalist “left” feel perfectly comfortable with ignoring the plain words of the “no religious test” clause of Article VI of the Constitution of the United States of America. That clause reads as follows:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Defenders of all things American contend that the "no religious test" clause permits Catholics, who had been disenfranchised in the United Kingdom and Ireland, to hold public office. Isn't that nice? What the "no religious test" clause of Article VI of the Constitution of the United States permits also is for atheists and deists and Freemasons and Mohammedans and Wiccans or anyone else to hold public office and thus to seek to use the civil laws as the means to enshrine their false beliefs. Once again, there is no rational, coherent basis to oppose the advances made by baby-killers and perverts when a civil government admits that there is no Divinely-instituted authority to which it must submit itself when the good of souls demands such submission. Everything contained in the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law becomes negotiable. Everything. And given the fact that the devil never rests, those who seek to defend society in a non-denominational or even secular manner against various objective evils begin to look upon "compromise" as a sign of progress, thereby institutionalizing evil more and more by means of civil law and in the nooks and crannies of popular culture, a point made very tellingly by Pope Leo XIII in Libertas Praestantissimum, June 20, 1888:

But, to judge aright, we must acknowledge that, the more a State is driven to tolerate evil, the further is it from perfection; and that the tolerance of evil which is dictated by political prudence should be strictly confined to the limits which its justifying cause, the public welfare, requires. Wherefore, if such tolerance would be injurious to the public welfare, and entail greater evils on the State, it would not be lawful; for in such case the motive of good is wanting. And although in the extraordinary condition of these times the Church usually acquiesces in certain modern liberties, not because she prefers them in themselves, but because she judges it expedient to permit them, she would in happier times exercise her own liberty; and, by persuasion, exhortation, and entreaty would endeavor, as she is bound, to fulfill the duty assigned to her by God of providing for the eternal salvation of mankind. One thing, however, remains always true -- that the liberty which is claimed for all to do all things is not, as We have often said, of itself desirable, inasmuch as it is contrary to reason that error and truth should have equal rights.

And as to tolerance, it is surprising how far removed from the equity and prudence of the Church are those who profess what is called liberalism. For, in allowing that boundless license of which We have spoken, they exceed all limits, and end at last by making no apparent distinction between truth and error, honesty and dishonesty. And because the Church, the pillar and ground of truth, and the unerring teacher of morals, is forced utterly to reprobate and condemn tolerance of such an abandoned and criminal character, they calumniate her as being wanting in patience and gentleness, and thus fail to see that, in so doing, they impute to her as a fault what is in reality a matter for commendation. But, in spite of all this show of tolerance, it very often happens that, while they profess themselves ready to lavish liberty on all in the greatest profusion, they are utterly intolerant toward the Catholic Church, by refusing to allow her the liberty of being herself free. (Pope Leo XIII in Libertas Praestantissimum, June 20, 1888.)

This is not a matter of ethereal speculation having nothing to with the real lives of human beings. Not at all. The heresy of religious liberty, which is at the heart of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, devastates souls. The belief that those who belong to false religions have a "civil right" to propagate themselves and that their false beliefs can contribute to the betterment of society make it impossible to exclude those false religions from making their presence felt everywhere in society, especially in "educational" institutions, where the tender souls of the young become ready prey to false ideas that are propagandized by charismatic professors. This is true in the United States of America and elsewhere in the allegedly "free" world of "democratic republics.

The late Senator Dianne Emiel Goldman Berman Feinstein Blum and the very much alive Senators Richard Durbin, and MazieHirono believe that the “no religious test” clause should forbid anyone who professes a religious belief from holding public office, especially when one holds even to a semblance of recognizable Catholicism. They are hypocrites of the highest order as they would never countenance a Catholic senator question a Jew or a Mohammedan about his ability to serve in a public office because of his commitment to either of these false religions that deny the Sacred Divinity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. (Feinstein's office put out a "clarification" on the religious test clause that was sent to the National Review after she began to take heat for her blatant anti-Catholicism: Dianne Emiel Goldman Berman Feinstein Blum Attacks Amy Coney Barrett.)

Second, admitting that Richard Joseph Durbin is simply an apostate who has lived long enough to see a “pope” who shares his own socialist beliefs concerning how to create the “better” world and to “save the planet” while ignoring the plight of the innocent preborn, Senators Feinstein and Hirono prove yet again the truth of the following citations about the deeply-ingrained bias that is anti-Catholicism:

"It has been many years since the poet and essayist Peter Viereck called anti-Catholicism 'the anti-Semitism of the intellectuals.'" Peter Steinfels, Catholic 'Power' a Concern for Some, MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL STAR TRIBUNE, July 5, 1997, at 8B. Viereck's actual words were that "Catholic-baiting is the anti-Semitism of the liberals." PETER VIERECK, SHAME AND GLORY OF THE INTELLECTUALS 45 (1953). While Viereck's words are misquoted regularly, the spirit of what he said remains true. See Joseph Gallagher, Slouching Toward Baltimore: Pope's Visit and Thoughts on the End, SUN (Baltimore), Sept. 10, 1995, at 7J ("In our own century, the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. spoke of anti-Catholicism as the deepest ingrained prejudice in American culture. And the scholar Peter Viereck described anti-Catholicism as 'the anti-Semitism of the intellectuals.' ") (See Footnote 637, St. John's Law Review. Many articles on this site have documented actual instances of anti-Catholicism in the United States of America in the Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.)

Third, as is the case with the Christophobic Southern Poverty Law Center, which, if you will recall, has deemed me to be the leader of a “hate group,” non-Catholics such as the late Dianne Emiel Goldman Feinstein Blum, believes that the only “safe” Catholic is one who dissents from the Sacred Deposit of Faith, especially as it relates to the Fifth, Sixth, and Ninth Commandments. A person who is “faithful” is said to be a “threat” to the American “way” that is in large measure responsible for the increase of violent attacks upon us all at this time (see Victims of a World Shaped By One Lie After Another).

Fourth, Richard Joseph Durbin’s problem with Amy Coney Barrett was that she stands as a rebuke to his own Catholic conscience. Durbin, who will turn eighty-two years of age on November 21, 2025, the Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, must seek to harass one who, despite being part of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, is not seen as a “safe” Catholic as he has sold his soul to the devil years ago to curry favor with pro-abortion voters.

In doing so, of course, Richard Joseph Durbin stands condemned by the following words of Pope Pius XI in Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930:

Those who hold the reins of government should not forget that it is the duty of public authority by appropriate laws and sanctions to defend the lives of the innocent, and this all the more so since those whose lives are endangered and assailed cannot defend themselves. Among whom we must mention in the first place infants hidden in the mother's womb. And if the public magistrates not only do not defend them, but by their laws and ordinances betray them to death at the hands of doctors or of others, let them remember that God is the Judge and Avenger of innocent blood which cried from earth to Heaven. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.)

I will be using this quotation once again when discussing Blase Cupich’s unqualified admiration of Richard Durbin.

Suffice it for the moment to note that Cupich will have to answer to Christ the King for enabling Richard Durbin, who will also have to answer to Our Divine King for betraying the innocent preborn to death at the hands of doctors and others. Durbin knows better as he graduated from Assumption High School in 1962. Then again, perhaps he learned his moral relativism while at Georgetown University and its Law Center between 1962 and 1969.

Richard Durbin was taught the Faith better before he was corrupted by the teaching at Georgetown University and by the bad example of other Catholics in public life who have been able to maintain their own "good standing" in the conciliar structures despite supporting grave moral evils under cover of the civil law. I will also append, as I have in other articles, citations that prove you and your fellow Esaus stand against all of the witness of Catholic truth and even against that of many pagans who only had access to the Natural Law.

Thus, as well-meaning as the “conservative” American “bishops” with the conciliar structures may, their well-stated objections, included in the articles pasted just below, really mean nothing to Blase Cupich, who is simply following the lead of the late Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s calling an actual baby-killer, Emma Bonino, one of “Italy forgotten greats” because of her work with illegal immigrants and his constant enabling of pro-abort American politicians such as Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi, Edmund Gerald Brown, Jr., among others, as well as inviting pro-death advocates such as Paul Ehlrich, John Holdren, Andrew Mark Cuomo, and Chelsea Clinton Mezvinsky to participate (either personally or virtually) in conferences sponsored by the conciliar Vatican.

What Blase Cupich is doing by honoring Richard Durbin did just “happen” and it is unlikely, although not entirely impossible, that Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV will overrule his friend, who played an instrumental role in helping to make him "Pope Leo XIV," and side with the statements of the “conservative” “bishops” that Jorge Mario Bergoglio was always criticizing:

Five U.S. bishops have now spoken out against the decision of Chicago Cardinal Blase J. Cupich and the Archdiocese of Chicago to present Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., a “Lifetime Achievement Award” for his work on immigration issues in November due to the senator’s longstanding public position on abortion.

The Archdiocese of Chicago’s Office of Human Dignity and Solidarity Immigration Ministry and Cardinal Blase J. Cupich are scheduled to give Durbin, who is Catholic, the award at an event supporting the Archdiocese of Chicago’s local Immigration Ministry and National Pastoral Migratoria.

Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Ill. — in whose diocese Durbin resides, according to his official biography — expressed his shock at the decision to The Pillar Sept. 20.

Bishop Paprocki told OSV News Sept. 24 that regardless of Durbin’s record on other issues, his public position supporting policies to protect legal abortion disqualifies him from receiving any awards, per policies of both the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Archdiocese of Chicago itself.

The reason I decided to step forward was in response to something that Cardinal Cupich and the Archdiocese of Chicago are doing,” he told OSV News. “I didn’t start this. They are doing something that is contrary to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ statement on ‘Catholics in Political Life,’ that we, as the bishops of the United States, issued back in 2004.

“And it says very clearly: ‘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.'”

“That’s pretty clear,” Bishop Paprocki said. “And in fact, the Archdiocese of Chicago has its own policy that is very similar to that about not giving honors or speaking opportunities to people whose public position is in opposition to the fundamental moral principles of the Catholic Church.”

On Sept. 21, Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco posted on X his support of Bishop Paprocki, saying, “I stand in solidarity with Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, in urging Cardinal Cupich to reconsider giving Senator Durbin a Lifetime Achievement Award through the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Office of Human Dignity and Solidarity given his long record of supporting legal abortion.

“Bishop Paprocki, who is Senator Dick Durbin’s bishop, has expressed shock that the Archdiocese plans to honor Senator Durbin who, although a self-professed Catholic, supports access to abortion so radically that he has even opposed legislation to protect babies born after an attempted abortion. Bishop Paprocki is correct that both clarity and unity are at risk. I hope this will be a clarion call to all members of the Body of Christ to speak out to make clear the grave evil that is the taking of innocent human life.”

He followed that up Sept. 23 with another post, saying: “Imagine this: a prominent member of the U.S. Senate has a very strong record on defending the human dignity of life in the womb but also advocates for funding for Border Patrol agents to shoot people trying to enter the country illegally. Would anyone think it reasonable to honor such a senator for the senator’s pro-life record on abortion? No one who advocates for the direct, intentional killing of innocent human life should be honored. Period.”

Bishop James D. Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska, also wrote on X on Sept. 23: “I too was shocked and bewildered to learn of this Lifetime Achievement Award to be presented to U.S. Senator Dick Durbin. The senator’s public record has been consistently pro-abortion and he has opposed any protections or safeguards for unborn children in the womb, even to the point of rejecting legislation to protect children who survive failed abortions.

“That goes against the fundamental moral principles of the Catholic Church. It seems to me there is still time to reconsider this decision. I pray for the good of the Church this award is not given to Senator Durbin and the scandal it will likely cause the faithful is avoided.”

Bishop James S. Wall of Gallup, New Mexico, posted Sept. 24 simply, “Thank you @BishopPaproki” on X, in response to a formal fraternal correction that the Springfield bishop had written in First Things to Cardinal Cupich.

Also posting Sept. 24 was Bishop David Ricken of Green Bay, who said, “The Archdiocese of Chicago’s plan to give @SenatorDurbin a Catholic “Lifetime Achievement Award” is untenable. Works of justice & protecting life are not mutually exclusive but must be inclusive. Abortion violates “Thou shalt not kill” (Ex 20:13). I join @BishopPaprocki & @ArchCordileone in urging @CardinalBCupich to retract this award. Let us together pray & act consistently for life!”

In response to an OSV News request for comment Sept. 24, a spokesperson for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops declined to comment.

In a statement Sept. 22, Cardinal Cupich said Durbin purchased a condo in Chicago “some years ago” and “considers me to be his bishop.”

As such, the cardinal said, “I have remained faithful to the May 2021 instructions of the then-Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, advising bishops to “reach out to and engage in dialogue with Catholic politicians within their jurisdictions … as a means of understanding the nature of their positions and their comprehension of Catholic teaching.”

Cardinal Cupich cited the church’s teaching on the consistent ethic of life, a phrase coined by the late Cardinal Joseph L. Bernardin of Chicago, “that Catholic teaching on life and dignity cannot be reduced to a single issue, even an issue as important as abortion.

“The annual celebration of immigrants, Keep Hope Alive, will recognize all the critically important contributions Senator Durbin has taken to advance Catholic social teaching in the areas of immigration, the care of the poor, Laudato Si’, and world peace,” he continued. “The recognition of his defense of immigrants at this moment, when they are subjected to terror and harm, is not something to be regretted, but a reflection that the Lord stands profoundly with both immigrants who are in danger and those who work to protect them.”

Referring to the 2021 CDF (now DDF, or Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith) letter encouraging the U.S. bishops to dialogue with Catholic politicians, Bishop Paprocki told OSV News, “That’s fine. I do that. I’ve had dialogue with Senator Durbin. But when a bishop is trying to do that and the politician ignores it, well then you have to take some steps.”

He pointed out that the question of Durbin’s relationship with the local church predates him.

“This goes back to 2004 when the pastor of his parish here, Blessed Sacrament Parish in Springfield, was then Msgr. Kevin Vann. He’s now Bishop Kevin Vann, the bishop of Orange, Calif. And he told — back then — Senator Durbin that he shouldn’t go to Communion, and that was upheld by my predecessor, Bishop George Lucas, who’s now Archbishop Emeritus of Omaha. And so that has been observed here,” Bishop Paprocki said.

“Senator Durbin told me himself he does not go to Communion in our diocese,” he added. “Well, he goes to Communion apparently at a church in Chicago. He has a condominium in Chicago, but he still has his home here in Springfield. I would say I’m still his bishop as far as that is concerned.”

Bishop Paprocki pointed out that Cardinal Cupich was asked about Durbin’s not being able to receive Holy Communion directly in 2018 by the Stte Journal Register, the newspaper in Springfield.

“Cardinal Cupich said, ‘I leave it to each bishop who has an obligation to be in dialogue with his elected officials on this matter in terms of their own practice of the Catholic faith. I was not part of the discussion between the bishop and Senator Durban on that, so I can’t comment on that, but I do respect any bishop who needs to take action within their own diocese, and I also believe that conversation should remain between those two,'” Bishop Paprocki told OSV News.

“Well, those two, as Cardinal Cupich himself said, would be Senator Durbin and me, Bishop Paprocki. And so at this point, that hasn’t changed,” the bishop added. “He still has a home here, which in canon law is called a domicile. He has a domicile here in this diocese. And so, to that extent, I’m in a position where I believe I have to say something. It’s not just, well, should I say something? I believe I have that obligation.” (Four more bishops speak out against Sen. Durbin lifetime achievement award.)

“Dialogue” has gotten the babies nowhere but death.

Inaction in the 1970s has led to the institutionalize of willful murder, one of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance, and emboldened hard-core pro-aborts such as Richard Durbin to the point that they are being lionized for their work with those have willfully violated the just laws of nations concerning legal migvration as the blood of the innocent continues to be shed without regard to the words of Pope Pius XI quoted earlier in this commentary:

These words apply to Blase Cupich for his career long effort to make it appear that foremost moral issue of our times, the daily slaughter of the innocent preborn by chemical and surgical means is just “one” of many issues even as little babies are denied their right to life here on earth and the enjoyment of the Beatific Vision of the Most Holy Trinity for all eternity in Heaven

May the Rosaries we pray today, the Feast of the North American Martyrs and the Commemoration of Saints Cyprian and Justina, help to make reparation for our own sins and for the sins of pro-aborts in public life such as Richard Durbin and their conciliar enablers such as Blase Cupich.

Our Lady of the North American Martyrs, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Isaac Jogues, S.J., pray for us.

Saint Rene Goupil, S,J., pray for us.

Saint John Lalande, S,J., pray for us.

Saint Gabriel Lalemant, S.J., pray for us.

Saint Noel Chabanel, S.J., pray for us.

Saint Charles Garnier, S.J., pray for us.

Saint Anthony Daniel, S.J., pray for us.

Saint John De Brebeuf, S.J., pray for us.

Appendix

The Catholic Church's Consistent Opposition to Abortion

(Citations found on the Priests for Life website and included in my own Fact and Fiction)

"The way of light, then, is as follows. If anyone desires to travel to the appointed place, he must be zealous in his works. The knowledge, therefore, which is given to us for the purpose of walking in this way, is the following....Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born" (Letter of Barnabas 19 [A.D. 74] ). The Letter of Barnabas

"Thou shalt not use magic. Thou shalt not use witchcraft; for he says, ‘You shall not suffer a witch to live’ [Ex. 22:18]. Thou shall not slay thy child by causing abortion, nor kill that which is begotten. . . . [I]f it be slain, [it] shall be avenged, as being unjustly destroyed" (Apostolic Constitutions 7:3 [A.D. 400] ). The Apostolic Constitutions

On therapeutic abortion:

And therefore the following question may be very carefully inquired into and discussed by learned men, though I do not know whether it is in man's power to resolve it: At what time the infant begins to live in the womb: whether life exists in a latent form before it manifests itself in the motions of the living being. To deny that the young who are cut out limb by limb from the womb, lest if they were left there dead the mother should die too, have never been alive, seems too audacious. Now, from the time that a man begins to live, from that time it is possible for him to die. And if he die, wheresoever death may overtake him, I cannot discover on what principle he can be denied an interest in the resurrection of the dead. -Enchiridion 23.86

Therefore brothers, you see how perverse they are and hastening wickedness, who are immature, they seek abortion of the conception before the birth; they are those who tell us, "I do not see that which you say must be believed." - Sermon 126, line 12 Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

Why sow where the ground makes it its care to destroy the fruit? where there are many efforts at abortion? where there is murder before the birth? for even the harlot thou dost not let continue a mere harlot, but makest her a murderer also. You see how drunkenness leads to whoredom, whoredom to adultery, adultery to murder; or rather something even worse than murder. For I have no name to give it, since it does not take off the thing born, but prevents its being born. Why then dost thou abuse the gift of God, and fight with His laws, and follow after what is a curse as if a blessing, and make the chamber of procreation a chamber for murder, and arm the woman that was given for childbearing unto slaughter? For with a view to drawing more money by being agreeable and an object of longing to her lovers, even this she is not backward to do, so heaping upon thy head a great pile of fire. For even if the daring deed be hers, yet the causing of it is thine. Hence too come idolatries, since many, with a view to become acceptable, devise incantations, and libations, and love potions, and countless other plans. Yet still after such great unseemliness, after slaughters, after idolatries, the thing [fornication] seems to belong to things indifferent, aye, and to many that have wives, too. -Homily 24 on Romans John Chrysostom (347-407)

You may see many women widows before wedded, who try to conceal their miserable fall by a lying garb. Unless they are betrayed by swelling wombs or by the crying of their infants, they walk abroad with tripping feet and heads in the air. Some go so far as to take potions, that they may insure barrenness, and thus murder human beings almost before their conception. Some, when they find themselves with child through their sin, use drugs to procure abortion, and when (as often happens) they die with their offspring, they enter the lower world laden with the guilt not only of adultery against Christ but also of suicide and child murder. - Epistula 22 Jerome (347-420)

Indeed there are those women who cut off the word prematurely born/aborted, before they give birth, there are those who have Christ in the womb but they will not yet have formed (him), to whom it is said: my children, whom I desire to bring forth again and again until Christ be formed in you. Expositio evangelii secundum Lucam, lib. 10, line 252 [private translation]

[Thomas A. Droleskey interjection at this point: One can see in this previous quote, which comes from Saint Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, the same language that many, including yours truly, have used for decades now to describe abortion as attack mystically upon Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the persons of preborn child. I digress. Back to the sources quoted on the Priests for Life website:]

But why the eye or the hand, since the aborted child has both a hand and an eye which has already been formed? -Ambrose, Expositio evangelii secundum Lucam, lib. 10, line 283 [private translation]

And elsewhere the same Ecclesiastes, being an old man, guarded him better whom his mother had cast out by abortion, because he did not see these bad things which they make in this world, he neither came into these shadows nor walked in vanity, and for that reason he who did not come into this life will have more of a rest than he who came. - De bono mortis, cap 2, par. 4, line 11

The poor get rid of their small children by exposure and denying them when they are discovered. But the rich also, so that their wealth will not be more divided, deny their children [when they are] in the womb and with all the force of parricide, they kill the beings of their wombs [while they are] in the same fruitful womb. In this way life is taken away from them before it has been given. -Hexameron V.18.58 [private translation] Ambrose (c.340-397)

To Anfilochius, Bishop of Iconia:

She who has intentionally destroyed [the fetus] is subject to the penalty corresponding to a homicide. For us, there is no scrutinizing between the formed and unformed [fetus]; here truly justice is made not only for the unborn but also with reference to the person who is attentive only to himself/herself since so many women generally die for this very reason. -First Letter 2

Canon II.

Let her that procures abortion undergo ten years' penance, whether the embryo were perfectly formed, or not. - The First Canonical Epistle of Our Holy Father Basil, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia to Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium.

…those who give the abortifacients and those who take the poisons are guilty of homicide. -First Letter 8 Basil (c.329-379)

That the unborn child is alive:

How are they dead unless they were first alive? But still in the womb an infant by necessary cruelty is killed when lying twisted at the womb's mouth he prevents birth and is a matricide unless he dies. Therefore there is among the arms of physicians an instrument by which with a rotary movement the genital parts are first opened, then with a cervical instrument the interior members are slaughtered with careful judgment by a blunt barb, so that the whole criminal deed is extracted with a violent delivery. There is also the bronze needle by which the throat - cutting is carried out by a robbery in the dark; this instrument is called and embryo knife from its function of infanticide, as it is deadly for the living infant.

This Hippocrates taught, and Asclepiades, and Erasistratus and Herophilus, the dissector of adults, and the milder Soranos himself, - all of them certain that a living being had been conceived and so deploring the most unhappy infancy of one of this kind who had first to be killed lest a live woman be rent apart. Of this necessity of crime, Hicesius, I believe did not doubt, as he added souls to those being born from blows of cold air, because the word itself for "soul" among the Greek relates to such a cooling. - De Anima 25.5 - 6

They [John and Jesus] were both alive while still in the womb. Elizabeth rejoiced as the infant leaped in her womb; Mary glorifies the Lord because Christ within inspired her. Each mother recognizes her child and each is known by her child who is alive, being not merely souls but also spirits. Tertullian (c.160-240) - De Anima 26.4

Council of Elvira (c. 305)

Canon 68: If a catechumen should conceive by an adulterer, and should procure the death of the child, she can be baptized only at the end of her life.

Council of Ancyra (314)

Canon 21: Women who prostitute themselves, and who kill the child thus begotten, or who try to destroy them when in their wombs, are by ancient law excommunicated to the end of their lives. We, however, have softened their punishment and condemned them to the various appointed degrees of penance for ten years. Quotes from Early Councils

The Lord's Teaching to the Heathen by the Twelve Apostles:

1 There are two ways, one of life and one of death; and between the two ways there is a great difference.

2 Now, this is the way of life:…

The second commandment of the Teaching: "Do not murder; do not commit adultery"; do not corrupt boys; do not fornicate; "do not steal"; do not practice magic; do not go in for sorcery; do not murder a child by abortion or kill a newborn infant. "Do not covet your neighbor's property; do not commit perjury; do not bear false witness"; do not slander; do not bear grudges. Do not be double-minded or double-tongued, for a double tongue is "a deadly snare." Your words shall not be dishonest or hollow, but substantiated by action. Do not be greedy or extortionate or hypocritical or malicious or arrogant. Do not plot against your neighbor. Do not hate anybody; but reprove some, pray for others, and still others love more than your own life. Didache: The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles

The Priests for Life website also includes several citations from pagan authors who condemned abortion. Both of these quotations were found in that book called Abortion in the Early Church:

Of what avail to fair woman to rest free from the burdens of war [i.e. pregnancy], nor choose with shield in arm to march in the fierce array, if, free from peril of battle, she suffer wounds from weapons of her own, and arm her unforeseeing hands to her own undoing?

She who first plucked forth the tender life deserved to die in the warfare she began. Can it be that, to spare your bosom the reproach of lines, you would scatter the tragic sands of deadly combat? -De Nuce, lines 22-23; cf. Amores 2.13 (Ovid, 43 B.C.-65 A.D.)

Juvenal (c.57/67-127)

Poor women…endure the perils of childbirth, and all the troubles of nursing to which their lot condemns them; but how often does a gilded bed contain a woman that is lying in it? So great is the skill, so powerful the drugs, of the abortionist, paid to murder mankind within the womb. Pagan Sources

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This Did Not Just Happen, part two

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