Cdl. Cupich in the running to head USCCB Committee for Pro-Life Activities

"Saint" Cdl. Bernardin

The committee is customarily overseen by a cardinal, and one of the candidates for the position is Cardinal Blase Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago. Cupich is one of few American cardinals who has not headed the committee. Running against him is Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, who is already a pro-life committee member.

In many ways, the election is a referendum on the bishops’ approach to “pro-life activities,” and Bernardin figures significantly into that question.

In theological circles, Cardinal Bernardin is most well-known for his “Consistent Ethic of Life” viewpoint, known colloquially as the “seamless garment" approach. In a famous lecture at Fordham University in 1983, Bernardin explained the concept, advocating “that the pro-life position of the Church must be developed in terms of a comprehensive and consistent ethic of life.”

story at CNA

Considering what Pope Francis has done to remove followers of JPII's Gospel of Life from the Pontifical Academy for Life, it would seem certain that Cds Wuerl and O'Malley are campaigning now to make the USCCB consistent with the wishes of this pontificate.  Unless there's a concerted effort by some bishops, I find it unlikely Cupich would not be appointed.  Everyone fears the Roman terror campaign.

Fun fact, and I'm not certain this is still true but up until some short years ago the USCCB refused to fund a pro-life office.  The only way it could be agreed upon is after the Knights of Columbus volunteered to fund the office themselves.  I'm pretty sure it's still true, but I don't have a way to verify it anymore.

By the way, did you see this?
Critics of Pope Francis establish new academy for human life and family

Several former members of the Vatican’s official Pontifical Academy of Life have formed a new independent academy, nearly a year after Pope Francis issued new statutes for the institution founded by Pope St. John Paul II in 1994.

Austrian Josef Seifert, a professor of philosophy, announced the new “John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family” on Oct. 28 at a Rome conference on Humanae Vitae, the 1968 encyclical by Blessed Pope Paul VI which reaffirmed the Church’s prohibition against artificial contraception.

Francis issued new statutes for the pontifical academy in November 2016 to widen the scope of its activity and research on life issues, while at the same time terminating the academy’s membership.

Abp. Cupich blasts Planned Parenthood in op-ed in Chicago Tribune, calls for "solid action," unfortunately invokes Seamless Garment

The release of videos of Planned Parenthood physicians discussing the market for tissue harvested in abortions has produced varied and strong reactions, and has, ironically, given us a reason for hope and an opportunity as a nation.

The tapes have generated a visceral reaction independent of how they were made or whether Planned Parenthood was making a profit. Rather, the widespread revulsion over the tapes arose because they unmasked the fact that, in our public conversation about abortion, we have so muted the humanity of the unborn child that some consider it quite acceptable to speak freely of crushing a child's skull to preserve valuable body parts and to have that discussion over lunch.

Yet, the outrage expressed by many at the physicians' callous and flippant attitude toward trafficking in human body parts is evidence that American hearts have not been irreparably hardened by the steady devaluing of human dignity in our society.

continue at Chicago Tribune

Bravo and thank you Abp. Cupich!

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Update: You may want to just stop reading after this lead section.  He invokes the Dogma of the Seamless Garment:

While commerce in the remains of defenseless children is particularly repulsive, we should be no less appalled by the indifference toward the thousands of people who die daily for lack of decent medical care; who are denied rights by a broken immigration system and by racism; who suffer in hunger, joblessness and want; who pay the price of violence in gun-saturated neighborhoods; or who are executed by the state in the name of justice.

Read that?  We should be no less appalled.  What an absolutely brutal statement, like comparing the atrocities in German in concentration camps, to the "rights denied immigrants."  Last time I checked, immigrants were not being dismembered and sold for their body parts.  

.@ArchbishopBlase "Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia." - Benedict XVI

— Ignazio (@IgnazioChicago) August 3, 2015