George Weigel, a papal biographer, has slammed choices two cardinals recently made, quoting St. Augustine’s condemnation of negligent shepherds.
He was responding to Cardinal Blaise Cupich’s nomination of a radically pro-choice senator for a “lifetime achievement award” and how Cardinal Stephen Chow, SJ, of Hong Kong denied the communist government’s strangling of Catholicism.
According to Weigel, during September in the Liturgy of the Hours, clergy read St. Augustine’s On Pastors, a text that includes a rebuke to shepherds who neglect their flocks.
“You have failed to strengthen what was weak, to heal what was sick and to bind up what was injured, that is, what was broken,” the saint wrote. “You did not call back the straying sheep, nor seek out the lost. What was strong you have destroyed. Yes, you have cut it down and killed it. The sheep is weak, and so, incautious and unprepared, it may give in to temptations.”
Augustine added later, “But what sort of shepherds are they who for fear of giving offense not only fail to prepare the sheep for the temptations that threaten, but even promise them worldly happiness?”
What then, Weigel wrote, might St. Augustine say to Cardinals Cupich and Chow?
This week, Cardinal Chow said in a speech in Parramatta, Australia, that the communist regime in Beijing strives to understand the Catholic Church and takes it seriously. According to Weigel, Cardinal Chong said, “Beijing wants to keep religious freedom intact in Hong Kong, because Hong Kong is important for China.”
Weigel noted the deep irony of the statement. The regime has imprisoned Catholic journalist Jimmy Lai and kept him in solitary confinement in Hong Kong for 1,600 days over charges of “threatening national security.”
“Unlike his predecessor, Cardinal Joseph Zen, SDB, Cardinal Chow has done virtually nothing to support Catholicism’s most famous 21st-century political prisoner or to reach out to Jimmy Lai’s family,” Weigel wrote. “Wouldn’t Augustine think that negligent in a shepherd?”
Cardinal Cupich has nominated the self-described Catholic Sen. Dick Durbin, D-IL, for a “lifetime achievement award” and doubled down on the decision to present the award during a Nov. 3 fundraiser. Weigel noted that Durbin is radically pro-abortion, with a 100% NARAL Pro-Choice America rating. He also supported same-sex “marriage.”
“For the Archdiocese of Chicago to honor such a man for his ‘lifetime achievement’ is preposterous,” Weigel wrote. “If Cardinal Cupich does not realize that, perhaps Senator Durbin might have the decency to decline the award on the grounds that his acceptance of it would further fracture the unity of the Catholic Church in Illinois.”
Cardinal Cupich’s predecessor, the late Cardinal Francis George, OMI, spoke to Durbin repeatedly, to no avail. Eventually Bishop Thomas Paprocki, of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, where Durbin lives, banned the senator from receiving the Eucharist.
“Cardinals Chow and Cupich deserve prayers as well as criticism, prayers that they come to take On Pastors seriously,” Weigel concluded. “For they may meet Augustine at the Great Assize, and when he asks them what they thought they were doing, ‘keeping the dialogue open’ may not be a satisfactory answer."