I arrived at Mundelein Seminary outside of Chicago in the fall of 1997 to begin my theological studies. A year prior, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, the long-serving Archbishop of Chicago, had died after a battle with cancer. Cardinal Bernardin’s greatest legacy as a bishop was his “Consistent Ethic of Life.” This is the idea that we cannot treat life issues such as abortion, capital punishment and euthanasia as separate issues. Rather, we must look at them as one consistent issue that encompasses the whole of our approach to the respect for human life.
This coming summer will mark the 35th anniversary of the installation of Cardinal Bernardin—who was originally a priest of the Diocese of Charleston—as Archbishop of Chicago. To commemorate this anniversary, Cardinal Blase Cupich, the current Archbishop of Chicago, wrote an article for
Commonweal magazine where he reasserted Bernardin’s Consistent Ethic of Life and the continual need for the Church to read the “signs of the times” as the Fathers of Second Vatican Council called us to do.
I present this article to you for your reading and reflection. The Church preaches a gospel of life. And we must see every person—the unborn, the elderly, the prisoner, the immigrant—as worthy of dignity and respect. Now, more than ever before, we must recommit ourselves to the cause of human life in all of its forms. I hope that you will take the time to read this link below and learn more about the seamless garment of life that Cardinal Bernardin presented.