Prof. John Rao says the Pope’s comments on abortion, immigrants, and the death penalty blur moral lines and risk continuing the ambiguities that plagued the Church under Pope Francis.
Maike Hickson
(LifeSiteNews) — Professor John Rao, the Chairman of the traditional Catholic Roman Forum and a retired professor of history of St. John’s University in New York City, recently gave LifeSiteNews an interview in Kansas City about the beginning of the new pontificate of Leo XIV and his recent September 30 comments regarding the issue of abortion.
Pope Leo had declined to comment on the fact that Cardinal Blase Cupich had expressed his intention to give an award to pro-abortion Senator Dick Durbin, claiming that he did not know many details of the case and adding that one has to look “at the overall work that a senator has done during … 40 years of service in the United States Senate.”
The Roman Pontiff then stated that “someone who says I’m against abortion but says I’m in favor of the death penalty is not really pro-life,” additionally asserting that “someone who says I’m against abortion but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”
Professor Rao, whose Roman Forum is “dedicated to the broad defense of Catholic doctrine and Catholic culture,” and who has been for decades an outspoken critic of Modernism within the Catholic Church, showed himself “puzzled” and “troubled” by these papal remarks. “Inhuman treatment” of immigrants is not something one would be in favor of; on the contrary, it was “inhuman” to let so many immigrants into the country, especially in light of the fact that so many of the immigrant children get lost and abducted. In Rao’s view, the Pope should be “more nuanced” in his comments. But, as if to further support Cardinal Cupich – who caused so much indignation within Catholic circles with his intention to honor Durbin that the senator had to decline the award – the Pope made him two weeks later, on October 15, a member of the governing council of Vatican City.
Speaking to LifeSiteNews on October 19 in Kansas City, where he had just given a talk at the Angelus Press Conference, Rao said that he was on his way to the Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage in Rome. He was “extremely grateful” that Cardinal Raymond Burke was given permission to celebrate a Pontifical High Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica. The professor added that his first impression of the new Pope after the conclave in May was “very, very encouraging,” and that he hopes for a “change of direction,” for a “different pontificate than that of Pope Francis.” In his eyes, a “change of direction” is “absolutely necessary.”
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