Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich urged an end to “lies” of voter fraud in the 2020 U.S. presidential election while urging that no limitations on voting be permitted.
“This morning I re-read the statement I put out last Jan. 6, when the world watched in horror as a violent mob attacked the U.S. Capitol in a coordinated, deadly attempt to overturn the legitimate results of a presidential election,” Cardinal Cupich wrote on Twitter Thursday in reference to his declaration decrying the Capitol riots as violence “in the service of a falsehood.”
“We should all agree that those who instigated and participated in such anti-democratic crimes should be held accountable,” the cardinal continued. “People died that day, and soon after. Some were killed. Some took their own lives. Many others were gravely injured.”
“They are still learning how to live with the trauma. But all of us must awaken to the reality that the rights we Americans hold dear are secured only by the legitimacy of our form of government,” declared Cupich, who regularly criticized Donald Trump but protested a statement by the U.S. Bishops criticizing Joe Biden for his overt support for abortion.
“The lies that led many millions to believe the falsehood that the 2020 election was ‘stolen’ must end,” Cupich stated in a separate tweet. “We must also be vigilant and resist all attempts to restrict voting rights. We ignore these and any effort to weaken our democracy at our own peril.”
The cardinal went on to cite Pope Francis’s criticism of populism, asserting that it foments “anti-democratic sentiment.”
Democracy “requires the participation of all sectors of the citizenry, not only those at the center of society, but especially those at the margins. That’s why it’s called the common good,” Cupich said.
“But make no mistake: If we succumb to despair, if we numb our minds to what is unfolding before us, we are tacitly surrendering our democracy, and all that it can do to protect the dignity of all God’s children,” he concluded.