Shortly after this interview, Senator Durbin declined Cardinal Cupich’s desire to honor him with a Catholic award. I think that after these comments by Pope Leo, Cardinal Cupich knew he was in deep do-do and had to save face on the international level where even the pope was weighing in on a damn award! So he talked Durbin into withdrawing. That’s my most humble opinion with no evidence other than the evidence at hand to prove it.
My astute comments, of course, always most humble:
Just so you know, I fully embrace the “seamless garment” which in my mind includes not giving Catholic honors to politicians who do not hold this position. If a politician is a rabid pro-execution politician, but very much aligned with the Church’s teachings on abortion, he should not receive an honor.
If I am responsible for creating the General Intercessions for Mass, I always include a pro-life petition that all people respect human life from conception through natural death.
Now, if I were a reporter, I would have had to ask Pope Leo to clarify his interview answer that if someone if in favor of the death penalty, that that isn’t pro-life. And what about just war, defending yourself with lethal force, if necessary, and other “exceptions” to this, that or the other in terms of life-issues?
If I am not mistaken, there are no exceptions in Catholic moral law/teachings when it comes to ending the life of an innocent unborn child. If you want to call it an exception, one could make a case for “indirect” abortion being allowable, but not dogmatically taught. It’s a pastoral solution to a difficult physical situation for the mother.
As far as I know, there has only been talk of developing the moral teaching concerning the death penalty to exclude any exceptions. St. John Paul II began that ball to roll, but there is no definitive teaching, as far as I know, in this regard.
As it concerns using lethal force that kills, in a just war, in self defense and even suicide to save others in an extreme situation, such as placing one’s body over a bomb device to save others, that is still permitted no?
And when it comes to immigration, governments have a right to create laws to manage it and can deport those who break laws, either by illegally entering a country, or committing crimes once in the country, even if legally entering. Government laws and respect for just laws is a part of the 4th Commandment, btw. Look it up in the CCC!
But the bottom line is to develop the doctrine of NO CATHOLIC AWARDS TO POLITICIANS, UNLESS THEY UPHOLD ALL THE “IDEALS” OF OUR PRO-LIFE TEACHINGS. JUST DO AWAY WITH AWARDS. WHY GIVE THEM?
Holy Father, please use the casual synodality of first consulting with your theological experts to answer questions which are well thought out, not a form a babel, and then placed into writing, with your theological experts reading over and endorsing what is written.
Please, Holy Father, no more magisterium by interviews. It is embarrassing to say the least!
