(LifeSiteNews) — Pro-abortion Senator Dick Durbin said he is “overwhelmed” by Pope Leo XIV’s apparent support for his “lifetime achievement award” from Cardinal Blase Cupich.

Leo on Tuesday appeared to imply that he was not opposed to Cupich’s decision to give the award to the radically pro-abortion and pro-LGBT Durbin, when asked about the matter by a journalist.

“I think that it is very important to look at the overall work that a senator has done during … 40 years of service in the United States Senate,” he stated. “I understand the difficulty and the tensions but I think, as I myself have spoken to in the past, it is important to look at many issues that are related to what is the teaching of the Church.”

“Someone who says I’m against abortion but says I’m in favor of the death penalty is not really pro-life. 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,” Leo then said. He went on to conclude, “So, they are very complex issues, I don’t know if anyone has all the truth on them.”

On the same day Leo appeared to defend Sen. Durbin receiving the lifetime award from Cupich, the pro-abortion politician announced that he will decline the award from the Archdiocese of Chicago after facing a strong backlash, including criticism from several U.S. bishops.

Durbin told NBC News he was surprised by “the level of controversy” over the award, and that he declined it “because the reaction has been so controversial against the cardinal who proposed it, and I see no point in going forward with that.”

Commenting on the pope’s defense of his award, Durbin said, “It is amazing to me. It’s quite a moment. I didn’t expect it. I didn’t know it was gonna happen.”

As the Lepanto Institute has pointed out on X, Durbin’s award violates the very laws of Cupich’s archdiocese. Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield has affirmed, “The U.S. bishops have clearly taught that support for abortion disqualifies individuals from receiving honors from Catholic institutions.”

Durbin’s award, and Leo’s failure to denounce his award, is even more shocking considering that since his election to the U.S. Senate in 1997, Durbin has supported every possible brutal method of abortion, as well as even post-abortion infanticide: He voted against the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, and the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.

He also supported legislation aimed at codifying and expanding Roe v. Wade – the “Women’s Health Protection Act” – despite the Supreme Court’s ruling that it was unconstitutional.

In 2004, Durbin was prohibited from receiving Holy Communion in his home diocese of Springfield, Illinois, as a result of his pro-abortion senatorial votes.