The meetings of two groups of Illinois Catholic leaders chaired by Cardinal Blase Cupich were postponed indefinitely last week after a lay leader requested that the Chicago cardinal-archbishop’s controversial decision to honor a pro-abortion-rights senator be discussed.

John Breen, a board member of the Catholic Conference of Illinois (CCI), asked on Sept. 23 that Cardinal Cupich’s plan to give Sen. Dick Durbin a “lifetime achievement award” at an upcoming archdiocesan fundraiser be added to the agenda of a Sept. 25 board meeting because the honor risked undermining the group’s advocacy work.

“All of our work is premised upon the dignity of the human person,” said Breen, a law professor at Loyola University Chicago and the Diocese of Joliet’s lay representative on the CCI board. “And yet you’re going to honor a man who denies the dignity of a whole class of persons? It makes no sense. So, I don’t see why we, as a body, wouldn’t address the issue.”

But no discussion took place. The CCI board meeting, which had been scheduled months in advance, was canceled on Sept. 24, just one day before it was set to take place at the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Catholic cemeteries office. A separate meeting of Illinois’ bishops that was scheduled to follow, during which Cardinal Cupich had indicated the Durbin award would be discussed, was also canceled.

The cancellations come amid mounting opposition to Cardinal Cupich’s plan to honor Durbin, who has a long history of voting for and promoting expanding abortion access. Thus far, the ordinaries of eight U.S. dioceses, including fellow Illinois Bishop Thomas Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield, have publicly called upon Cardinal Cupich to retract the award.

In the face of criticism, Cardinal Cupich has argued that the decision to honor Durbin on Nov. 3 at the “Keep Hope Alive” benefit for the archdiocese’s immigration ministry is consistent with Church teaching.

“At the heart of the consistent ethic of life is the recognition that Catholic teaching on life and dignity cannot be reduced to a single issue, even an issue as important as abortion,” he wrote in a Sept. 22 statement, noting Durbin’s record on immigration, care for creation, and other social-justice issues.

But Breen pushed back on this line of thinking, arguing that Durbin’s radical support for abortion, of which there were an estimated 89,770 in Illinois last year, makes the Democrat senator “the poster child for the ‘inconsistent ethic of life.’”

And Breen added that, had the CCI meeting taken place as scheduled, he would have  criticized the Durbin award despite the topic not being added to the agenda. 

“He is a man who is not worthy of being honored by the Catholic Church,” said Breen. “It sends the message that abortion is not truly important and is not a matter of social justice. It undermines the efforts of faithful pro-lifers and Catholic politicians who work for a truly consistent ethic of life. It cuts them off at the knees.”

CCI staff told the Register on Sept. 26 that their meeting’s cancellation was not related to the Durbin controversy but rather because the majority of Illinois’ six ordinaries were not able to attend, as is required by the conference’s bylaws. 

“I can understand why this looks bad because of the timing, but the reason the meeting didn’t take place was because we did not have quorum,” said Kelsey Chisam, CCI’s director of external relations.

However, another source familiar with the conference’s work told the Register that it was “unusual” to cancel a CCI meeting on such short notice due to attendance concerns. For his part, Breen, who has been a CCI board member since 2012, is convinced that the Durbin controversy was the underlying reason that the meeting did not take place.

“It seemed to me that this was a convenient way of avoiding the issue when, let’s face it, there’s been a public outcry,” he told the Register.

Quorum Questions

After Breen learned about Cardinal Cupich’s plan to honor Durbin on Sept. 18, he brought up the possibility of discussing it at the CCI board meeting with the bishop of his own diocese, Bishop Ronald Hicks, as well as Bishop Paprocki and Bishop David Malloy of Rockford.

According to Breen, Bishop Paprocki relayed the request to Robert Gilligan, CCI’s executive director, on Sept. 23. After conferring with Cardinal Cupich, Gilligan said that the issue would not be added to the CCI meeting’s agenda but would instead be discussed among the Illinois bishops at their provincial meeting.

But the following day, CCI board members were informed by staff via email that their board meeting had been “cancelled due to unforeseen quorum/attendance issues.” 

Meanwhile, a source confirmed that Chicago’s vicar general, Bishop Lawrence Sullivan, emailed Illinois’ bishops also on Sept. 24 to inform them that the Province of Chicago meeting was canceled.

The Archdiocese of Chicago did not return a request for comment.

Cardinal Cupich is both the metropolitan archbishop of the Province of Chicago, whose leadership includes the leaders of Illinois’ six dioceses, and the chairman of the CCI board, which includes Illinois’ six diocesan ordinaries, eight auxiliary bishops and six diocesan lay representatives. 

Despite the language of CCI’s original email, Gilligan insisted that the CCI meeting had not been canceled, but was instead “postponed,” due to attendance issues.

“It seemed throughout the day, members weren’t able to make it,” he said, adding that the final recommendation to cancel was given by him and Bishop Sullivan.

According to Gilligan, four of Illinois’ six ordinaries would have needed to attend to achieve quorum. Bishop Paprocki could not attend due to a standing teaching commitment at a Catholic college in his diocese, while the Diocese of Belleville is currently without an ordinary. Additionally, Gilligan said he had been informed that an additional bishop could not make the meeting at “the last minute” because he was “out of town.”

When the Register asked which Illinois ordinary beyond Bishop Paprocki could not attend, both Gilligan and Chisam said that they had not been told. When Gilligan was asked who told him that an additional bishop would not be able to attend, therefore resulting in a failure to achieve quorum, he declined to say.

Breen, however, told the Register that Bishop Hicks informed him on Sept. 24 that he would not be at the meeting because the Joliet ordinary was attending a conference on priestly formation in Louisiana.

Bishop Hicks, who served as a Chicago auxiliary bishop from 2018 to 2020 before being elevated to Joliet’s ordinary, did not respond before publication to a Register inquiry about why his inability to attend the CCI board meeting was not communicated earlier.

‘Perfunctory’ Meetings?

Breen also raised concerns about the way CCI meetings have been conducted under Cardinal Cupich.

Regarding the failure to achieve quorum, Breen noted that CCI had previously allowed board members to participate in meetings remotely, but Cardinal Cupich changed the policy at the beginning of 2025.

Another source told the Register that CCI meetings are routinely scheduled without first asking bishops about their availability or allowing attendance by video conference.

Breen added that whereas CCI meetings under Cardinal Francis George, Cardinal Cupich’s predecessor, had been genuinely “deliberative,” the current Chicago cardinal-archbishop has treated them as “perfunctory.” 

“Honestly, his treatment of this is ‘check the box.’ ‘Lay consultation, okay, I checked the box,’” shared Breen. 

Additionally, while CCI’s bylaws require biannual meetings, Breen said board meetings have frequently been canceled and not rescheduled under Cardinal Cupich, given the cardinal’s commitments in Rome and elsewhere.

Mounting Criticism

Breen’s request to discuss the Durbin award at the now-canceled meeting makes it clear that opposition to Cardinal Cupich’s plan is not dying down — neither in Illinois nor around the country.

After Bishop Paprocki first rebuked Cardinal Cupich in a Sept. 19 statement, a growing number of U.S. ordinaries have joined in offering public correction, a relative rarity among U.S. bishops. They include Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Bishop David Ricken of Green Bay, Bishop James Wall of Gallup, Bishop Carl Kemme of Wichita, Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth, and Bishop James Johnston Jr. of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

Citing Durbin’s abortion record, which includes opposition to a ban of partial-birth abortion and advocating for abortion rights to be enshrined into the U.S. Constitution, the bishops have said that the award risks distorting the Catholic Church’s fundamental opposition to abortion and have asked Cardinal Cupich to reconsider giving it.

“This obscene violence — a legal right to which Durbin sought to enshrine in American law — is contrary to human dignity and human solidarity,” wrote Bishop Paprocki in a Sept. 23 First Things article. “Thus, it is absurd that Sen. Durbin should be given an award from the office of ‘human dignity and solidarity’ when Durbin has spent his time in office denying the human dignity of the unborn and undermining solidarity with the weakest and most vulnerable among us.”

Bishop Paprocki also added that Cardinal Cupich did not consult with him before deciding to honor Durbin, despite Durbin’s being a resident of Springfield, where he has been denied Communion since 2004 due to his public advocacy for abortion.

Additionally, others who have previously supported Cardinal Cupich, a leader of the U.S. Church’s progressive wing, have also pushed back against the planned award. Mike Lewis of the website Where Peter Is, for instance, wrote on Sept. 26 that the decision to honor Durbin was “imprudent” and “an error in judgement.”

Cardinal Cupich has defended the planned honor as consistent with Church guidance to “engage in dialogue” with Catholic politicians, adding that Durbin considers the Chicago cardinal to be “his bishop.”

No Make-Up Scheduled

As for when the CCI board will meet next, Gilligan said “we’ll figure it out” — but offered no firm dates as of Sept. 26. 

“It’s not going to be next week,” said Gilligan, who was honored by Aid for Women, an Illinois pro-life group, with the Presidium Vitae Award at a dinner also on Sept. 25. “It’s going to take a bit of time. Once we get the cardinal’s schedule [we can go from there]. Sometimes it just falls into place and sometimes it doesn’t. We don’t have an immediate plan of when we’re going to do this.”

Illinois’ legislative session begins on Jan. 14, 2026.

Breen described the outcry Cardinal Cupich is facing as “a scandal of his own making.” However, although he didn’t get his chance to speak out at the CCI meeting, the Catholic law professor hopes Cardinal Cupich is still listening.

“I hope this outcry will continue,” said Breen. “I hope this criticism is sustained, and I hope that the cardinal reverses his position.”