Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich recently announced longtime Illinois Senator Dick Durbin (D) would be receiving a "Lifetime Achievement Award" at the archdiocese's "Keep Hope Alive" celebration in November for his work on immigration issues.
After the faithful, aware of Durbin's radical, pro-abortion career, raised a ruckus, the senator turned down the award.
But Pope Leo's quick defense of the senator has raised some eyebrows.
"Someone who says I'm against abortion but says I'm in favor of the death penalty is not really pro-life," the pope said on Tuesday.
Podcaster Matt Walsh, a Catholic, responded by calling that a "really terrible answer."
"First of all, God Himself prescribes the death penalty in the Bible," he noted. "If you believe the death penalty is fundamentally wrong or anti-life, you're either saying that God is guilty of a moral crime, or you're saying that the Bible does not accurately record God's commands."
Walsh also addressed Pope Leo's misunderstanding of the conservative view on immigration – claiming he does not know if someone who is against abortion but in agreement with the "inhuman treatment" of immigrants in the United States is pro-life.
"Who in America is arguing for inhuman treatment of immigrants?" the podcaster posed. "What do you mean? Are you talking about deportations? Are you saying that deporting an illegal immigrant is morally equivalent or even similar at all to killing a human child?"
The Catholic Church teaches that while sovereign nations have a right to control their borders and manage migration, all people, including migrants, have fundamental human rights and inherent dignity.
As for the pope's claim that no one has the complete truth on these "complicated" issues, Walsh argued there is nothing more to know about abortion.
"It's a human being who's being killed, and that is a great moral evil," he stated.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "Since the first century, the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law."
The pope is elected for life by a two-thirds majority of the College of Cardinals. There are 251 cardinals, but only 134 of them – those younger than 80 – can vote.
Pope Leo was born Robert Francis Prevost in Chicago; he is the first to have been born in the United States.
