According to the AP,1 the issue arose because Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich wanted to give a "lifetime achievement award to Illinois Senator Dick Durbin for his work helping immigrants." Some US bishops objected because of the Senator's perennial support for abortion, for which he has been denied communion in his home diocese — a pretty serious consequence for Roman Catholics.
Leo responded to this objection with a disappointing, "But what is pro-life, really?"
More precisely:
“Someone who says ‘I’m against abortion but says I am in favor of the death penalty’ is not really pro-life,” Leo said. “Someone who says that ‘I’m against abortion, but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States,’ I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”
His statement is a rebuke of the United States, but it's mostly an attack on politically conservative Christians. As one of those, I feel I should respond.
A recent revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church says,
Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.
Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.
Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.2
In their view now, capital punishment is never acceptable. I'll grant that this position is preferable to their burning people with theological differences at the stake, but when they teach capital punishment is never acceptable, they seem to be calling into question passages in the Bible that literally command it. They say it is "an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person"; God said it was based on the inviolability and dignity of the person:
“Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed;
for in the image of God
has God made man." (Genesis 9:6)
God also commanded that people be put to death for several other crimes in the Law of Moses. No, we are no longer under that law, but because God commanded this, we cannot ever say capital punishment is always wrong.
God's own words tell us it is because of the value of human life a murderer's life should be forfeit. Each life is precious, and ending one is a crime against God and man. A proper respect for life, then, would see capital punishment as an absolutely just response by the state to the taking of an innocent human life.
A blanket prohibition is different than saying a legal system has a track record of injustice and cannot be trusted to administer capital punishment fairly. Many documents produced by Roman Catholics on the topic raise this issue; I, too, have serious misgivings about the way justice has been done in this country. One can absolutely say, "God commanded capital punishment, but if we cannot administer it fairly, we have no business administering it at all." But that is not what Leo said, nor is it what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says.
Then Leo decided to weigh in on immigration. While technically maintaining3 that nations have a right, even a responsibility, to maintain their borders and that illegal immigrants, once caught, may be deported, in practice the Roman Catholic position is that immigrants, legal or illegal, should be allowed to move about freely and provided everything they need.
Apparently anyone is supposed to be allowed to come and go from your country. An odd sentiment coming from the leader of a nation entirely surrounded by walls. In fairness, the Vatican did take in 12 whole refugees once.4
I know immigration is a difficult issue. It's entirely fair for a person who's been head of a tiny, walled-in state for less than six months to criticize how the United States handles its illegal immigration issue. It is not, however, fair to say people who don't agree with you on the issue are "not really pro-life." And I can't help but notice that those who say this are always defending, or in this case, defending someone who defends, taking the life of unborn children.
That said, maybe it's time to drop that name. We spend too much time defending the term. I'm happy to call myself "anti-abortion", though I think the goal was to be "pro" something instead of "anti" something. Perhaps we should call ourselves "pro-babies", because that's who we're trying to save.
But the truth is no matter what we call the movement, ideological opponents will attack it because picking at a name is a lot easier than defending killing innocent unborn human beings.
1 Pope intervenes in US abortion debate by raising what it really means to be ‘pro-life’
2 NEW REVISION OF NUMBER 2267 OF THE CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON THE DEATH PENALTY
3 Catholic Social Teaching on Immigration and the Movement of Peoples
4 Vatican takes in 12 migrants as pope denounces indifference
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