{"id":13943,"date":"2025-10-01T19:16:45","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T19:16:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/dick-durbin-says-he-was-overwhelmed-by-popes-support\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T19:16:45","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T19:16:45","slug":"dick-durbin-says-he-was-overwhelmed-by-popes-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/dick-durbin-says-he-was-overwhelmed-by-popes-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Dick Durbin says he was \u2018overwhelmed\u2019 by pope\u2019s support"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin said Wednesday he was \u201coverwhelmed\u201d by Pope Leo XIV\u2019s comments on his behalf<\/a>, made this week after the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago\u2019s decision to honor the pro-abortion-rights Democrat for his immigration work sparked a backlash from conservatives.<\/p>\n

The pontiff \u2014 a Chicago-area native who has voted in elections where Durbin was on the ballot \u2014 said \u201cit\u2019s important to look at the overall work that a senator has done\u201d and said a politician should not be judged only on their stance on abortion.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone who says, \u2018I\u2019m against abortion, but I\u2019m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States,\u2019 I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s pro-life,\u201d Leo told reporters Tuesday.<\/p>\n

All the same, the Archdiocese announced Tuesday that Durbin had opted to decline the award. The senator explained in a brief interview Wednesday that while it was a \u201cnice gesture,\u201d he did not want to create further headaches for Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot of controversy after he made that decision and criticism of him, and I basically told him that I respectfully decline the award,\u201d he said. \u201cI don’t need it, and he doesn’t, either.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anti-abortion advocates, including at least 10 U.S. bishops, condemned Cupich for the decision to honor Durbin, who is retiring next year after more than 40 years in Congress, at a Nov. 3 event.<\/p>\n

Durbin is well known for his advocacy on behalf of immigrants, including his role as an original co-author of the DREAM Act \u2014 legislation that would grant undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as minors a path to legal status.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin said Wednesday he was \u201coverwhelmed\u201d by Pope Leo XIV\u2019s comments on his behalf, made this week after the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago\u2019s decision to honor the pro-abortion-rights Democrat for his immigration work sparked a backlash from conservatives. The pontiff \u2014 a Chicago-area native who has voted in elections where Durbin was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13943\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}