When Cardinal Blase Cupich announced that he would not give an award next month to Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, he also offered a statement explaining why he’d offered the award in the first place, and what he hoped would come after a contentious row over the affair. The cardinal’s statement gave insight into his vision of the Church’s mission to evangelize – a vision that is not likely shared by most of the U.S. episcopate. The distinctions are more than a matter of style or emphasis – it is instead an essentially different vision of how the Church’s voice should speak in the modern world.
