Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, recently wrote a column for Respect Life Month offering clarification on the “consistent ethic of life” teaching known as “the seamless garment” in the aftermath of the controversy regarding pro-abortion Sen. Dick Durbin and a decision of the archdiocese of Chicago.
The archdiocese was planning to present Durbin, who is pro-abortion, with a Lifetime Achievement award in November for his support of immigrants. As CatholicVote previously reported, the news of the plan to award Durbin sparked outcry and confusion from Catholics across the U.S., and Durbin ultimately decided to decline the award.
“In the arguments advanced in favor of the lifetime achievement award for Durbin, some areas of confusion became apparent that need clarification,” Bishop Paprocki wrote in the column. “One is the distinction between intrinsic evils like abortion and prudential judgments about how to deal with social issues such as immigration.”
He explained that Vatican II stated that abortion and infanticide are “unspeakable crimes,” recalled that Pope St. John Paul II spoke of abortion’s moral gravity because it is murder, and how Pope Francis often compared abortion to “hiring a hitman.”
“On the other hand,” Bishop Paprocki wrote, “as clearly and accurately described by Father Christopher Trummer elsewhere on these pages, policy decisions on how best to help immigrants are prudential judgments. Deportation is not intrinsically evil (i.e., morally wrong in all circumstances) and civil governments have the right — and at times the duty — to enforce immigration laws.”
“At the same time,” he added, “Sacred Scripture and Catholic teaching uphold the dignity of every human being and urge compassion for those find it necessary to migrate when necessary to protect their life, dignity, or livelihood, as the Holy Family did when Jesus, Mary, and Joseph had to flee to Egypt when their lives were endangered by King Herod (see Matthew 2:13-15).”
Bishop Paprocki also elaborated on the “seamless garment,” a term referring to the consistent ethic of life presented by the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who served as the archbishop of Chicago from 1982 to 1996.
Bishop Paprocki wrote that there is a “misunderstanding and misuse” of Cardinal Bernadin’s consistent ethic of life. He gave the example of a Sept. 26 article in the National Catholic Reporter titled “We can’t limit politicians’ worth — or the consistent life ethic — to abortion alone,” by Steven Millies, a professor of public theology at the Chicago-based Catholic Theological Union.
According to the bishop, Millies wrote in the article: “It simply strains believability that a consistent ethic of life nurtured in a pastoral letter of the U.S. bishops addressing nuclear war would insist that we focus on abortion to the exclusion of other threats to life.”
Bishop Paprocki pushed back on this argument, writing that “no one who truly understands the consistent ethic of life is insisting that we focus on abortion to the exclusion of other threats to life.”
“However,” he added, “it is an inconsistent ethic of life to exclude concern for one key threat to life like abortion while promoting concern for other threats to life.”
He recalled that Cardinal Bernadin said the same in the 1983 Gannon Lecture at Fordham University.
“The principle which structures both cases, war and abortion, needs to be upheld in both places,” Cardinal Bernadin said, according to Bishop Paprocki. “It cannot be successfully sustained on one count and simultaneously eroded in a similar situation. … I contend the viability of the principle depends upon the consistency of its application.”
Bishop Paprocki also said he spent a lot of time throughout his years as a priest helping immigrants, including by co-founding a legal clinic in Chicago to provide legal services to the poor and help people obtain legal status as immigrants and citizens.
“When migrants are undocumented, they are vulnerable to unscrupulous employers who pay them below minimum [wage], threatening to call immigration authorities if they complain,” Bishop Paprocki wrote. “The best way for immigrants to thrive in our country is to come here legally. Our immigration laws are in need of reform to address current realities more adequately.”
Bishop Paprocki also pointed out the contradiction when politicians claim to be opposed to something personally, such as abortion, but do not want to impose their view on others.
“The phoniness of that argument is apparent in that it is never invoked with regard to any other subject,” he wrote. “You never hear a politician say, for example, ‘I am personally opposed to racism, but I do not want to impose my personal views on others.’ Politicians run on campaign platforms that reflect their views, promising to promote those values legislatively if elected.”
Bishop Paprocki concluded with a call for prayers throughout Respect Life month “for a clear and correct understanding of what it means to have a consistent ethic of life across the broad spectrum of life issues that we are called to respect.”
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