In recent days, following Leo XIV’s words about Cupich and the award to Senator Durbin, we have been able to witness a devastating phenomenon: the major media outlets have quickly positioned themselves as spokespersons for the Pope to accuse pro-life advocates of hypocrisy and whitewash pro-abortion politicians. MSNBC, for example, is already talking about “having the moral authority of the Church on their side” to justify abortion.
This is not an anecdote. Every word from a Pope has an immense echo. And what may seem like a theological nuance or a pastoral wink to some, in the cultural, political, and social battle, becomes a torpedo to the waterline of those who have spent decades defending life on the streets, in front of clinics, in parliaments, and in courts.
Abortion is not just another issue
The Church’s moral teaching, clearly outlined in Veritatis splendor and Evangelium vitae, for example, distinguishes between evils that are intrinsically disordered—and therefore never justifiable—and other social and moral problems that allow for degrees, contexts, and political prudence.
Abortion falls into the first category. It is the direct and intentional elimination of an innocent, an act that admits no mitigating circumstances or possible proportionalism. Placing it on the same level as migration policy, ecology, or poverty is not “integralism”; it is a moral distortion. It conceptually disarms the defense of life and reduces it to the realm of opinion.
The poison of the “seamless garment”
The so-called seamless garment theory of Joseph Bernardin, now revived as if it were the panacea for Christian coherence, operates in practice as a solvent: it reduces abortion to just another item on a list, placing it alongside the death penalty, pollution, or lack of access to the municipal sports center.
The consequence is predictable: instead of demanding that a politician defend the fundamental right to life, they are allowed to compensate for their support of abortion with a good green speech or funds for social programs. This is exactly what has happened with Durbin.
A bomb in Veritatis splendor
John Paul II explained with precision that there are acts that, by their very object, are always and everywhere evil. Abortion is the paradigm of such acts. Treating it as a debatable or relative matter, reducing it to the category of “one issue among others,” means dynamiting one of the pillars of Catholic morality, the concept of «intrinsically disordered.»
A tragedy for the Church and for the world
It is a tragedy that a Pope speaks this way, because it disarms the conscience of the faithful, muddles the clarity we need in the face of the cultural lie of abortion, and leaves those on the front lines fighting for the most vulnerable exposed.
The Church is not called to balance abortion with other secondary causes, but to proclaim with all the prophetic force of Christ that the innocent cannot be killed. That is the absolute red line, and erasing it in the name of “integral coherence” does not unite the Church: it divides and weakens it, and hands ammunition to the enemy.