Durbin, Paprocki, Cupich, and you

The Pillar in the whirlwind

Hey everybody,

It’s been a whirlwind in Catholic news. Today, it might have slowed down — but just for a minute.

Just two weeks ago it emerged that the Archdiocese of Chicago planned to give a lifetime achievement award to Senator Dick Durbin, who’s got a long record in professional politics of advocating for legal protection for abortion.

The award was a problem for Illinois Bishop Tom Paprocki, who argued it would be a scandal for Durbin to get the award, and who pointed out that Durbin is prohibited from the Eucharist in the Springfield diocese, where he lives.

Chicago’s Cardinal Blase Cupich fired back — saying in a statement that the award was focused only on Durbin’s immigration work, and that it was meant to open a “dialogue” with Durbin, as bishops are supposed to do.

That set off a round of reactions from other bishops, and eventually drew a response from the pope — though people are still debating what exactly the pope meant to say. And then after 10 days of controversy, Cupich announced Tuesday that Durbin had declined the award after all.

Today, people are still debating what all that means, and how it happened.

But here’s what I want to point out:

If you wanted to know what was going on these past weeks, you pretty much had to read The Pillar.

When Paprocki issued his initial pushback statement, he sent it to The Pillar days before other outlets had it — and in response to questions we posed.

Soon after, Paprocki sat down for an interview with The Pillar — and only with us — to explain why he “had to say something.”

When Cupich issued a statement of his own last Monday, it was in response to the things Paprocki told The Pillar.

And then, when an interesting skirmish picked up between the two bishops over canonical domicile and jurisdiction — well, I promise, The Pillar was the only news outlet in the world equipped to explain all that to you.

—Of course we had interesting columns and Pillar Posts breaking down the whole thing, and a good rolling round-up of who said what. In fact, eventually, when bishops made statements, they did it while sharing our round-up:

Or by retweeting our news stories:

But it was Tuesday, this week, when The Pillar did what The Pillar does best.

Everyone reported that the pope spoke on the subject, and Durbin withdrew from the award. But at The Pillar, we did the shoe leather investigative reporting to tell you what was going on behind the scenes. While everyone else speculated, we brought you well-sourced facts about what was going on at the USCCB, and what that might have triggered.

Of course, there’s more out there, and we aim to get it, and we’re already looking ahead to what happens next.

But The Pillar — and only The Pillar — brought you news, interviews, explainers, analysis, and serious investigative reporting which actually played a role in how the entire Durbin/Cupich affair played out.

And you read all of that, only at The Pillar.

That’s what we do. It’s why Catholics rely on us. It’s why bishops and Vatican curia staffers say we’re the only Catholic news they read. We’ve got sources, we’ve got knowledge, we’ve got drive, and we deliver.

At every step, The Pillar was out ahead of this story, covering it better, more thoroughly, and smarter than anybody else.

But none of that happens for free.

YOU — our readers — have to pay for it. We’re built on the premise that we can do the best journalism in the world if our readers pay for it, 8 bucks a month, one subscription at a time.

If enough readers don’t pay, we go away. Ed and I look for jobs somewhere, and our staff does too. And the entire Church, I really believe, is stuck gleaning facts and information from news websites who can’t do what we do, or who won’t put in the effort.

We were ahead at every step of this story. Next month, we’ll tell you how it impacts the U.S. bishops’ meeting, and soon enough we’ll explain what it means between the Vatican and American bishops.

While other news websites guess, we get the answers. No matter how long it takes. No matter how hard it is.

Maybe you’ve gotten used to relying on The Pillar. Or maybe this fracas was your first rodeo with us. But remember that this is how we do our jobs — better than anyone else — on every single story.

Now imagine what it’d be like without The Pillar.

You can subscribe, and keep us afloat. Or you can just cross your fingers and hope someone else will. But I’d suggest that if you care about truth, today’s the day.

We want to be around for the next story. I bet you want us there, too.

Yours in Christ,

JD Flynn
editor-in-chief
The Pillar