And the winner of the “Sir Richard Rich Award” for craven spinelessness…abject willingness to sell out his Church’s principles so that he can grub a little favor with the pro-aborts so as to make his reelections come easier…who else? Richard M. Daley, of course. And like the question Sir Thomas More asked Sir Richard Rich who has prostituted himself to continue in the King’s favor-and political power (dying as Lord Chancellor of England)-noticing by a medallion hanging from Rich’s neck that Rich has been made the crown’s attorney general for Wales:

You’re doing this-FOR WALES?

Truly nothing should be worth selling out one’s religious faith for political gain. In this case, Daley’s church grew from infancy in a Roman Empire where infanticide was practiced on a wide scale…unwanted live babies placed on one of the seven hills outside Rome, there to either starve to death or be devoured by wild wolves.

By the end of the 1st century infanticide was becoming a murder of the past but was supplanted by abortion for a practicable reason: Romans had decided to switch from murder they could see being carried out on the hillsides for what they inwardly knew was happening-but, as they were in denial, what they could not see.

It was then that the Church-Daley’s church-reacted by publishing the Didache which declared “You shall not procure abortion. You shall not destroy a newborn child.” It has continued throughout 2000 years. And its very condemning certitude must torture him now.

Always concerned only with his political survival, employing the knack of not endangering his well-being by adhering to moral and ethical conviction, Richard M. Daley has become the embodiment of Sir Richard Rich. Blustering, red-faced with denial, bristling with 11th ward fractured English, he announced he will sign legislation to create a protective zone round Chicago hospitals and clinics to keep; patients and employees from being “harassed” by those who protest abortion. It creates a protective zone within a 50-foot radius of the entrance to any hospital, medical clinic or health care facility. Within that zone no one can get closer than 8 feet to distribute materials, display signs, protest, educate or counsel persons without their consent.

This decision to sign the ordinance represents yet another political turn-about for Daley. In 1996 he ridiculed a similar proposal. But political survival at all costs is paramount for Daley. Frightened to death by the thought that he would have the Left against him and he might be defeated, he has decided to do anything…anything…to forestall that possibility.

Therefore he is indeed entitled to receive the Sir Richard Rich Award for flaccidity, moral evasiveness, cowardice and base motives-all covered up by the declaration that he cannot allow his supposed belief in his Church’s moral law to interfere with his mayoralty “responsibilities.” The excitable disjointed flow of speech, disrupted by repeating words, attempts to rephrase, have become manifestations of guilt-because Richard Daley knows that on this issue which he has long defended he stumbles out the sophism that everything one believes must be subordinate to his status with the city. Thus his excitability on this and lesser issues shows that he is bothered that by violating his conscience, the divine majesty is offended and the bonds by which humans are united in society are enervated. In his inner-self he must hope he will be spared before death to confess, or at least to breathe an Act of Contrition…but he knows that even so, the penalty will be harsh.

Because he doesn’t want to consider the question, he brushes away the question: Is the mayoralty so important and power so sweet as to violate the credo of your Church and hide under the easily-answered rubric that service as mayor rules all including conscience and morality? Nothing can transcend your continued service? Violation of lex aeterna is worth continuing to sit in twitching nervousness in your swivel chair on the 5th floor of City Hall? Daley knows it is not. But he doesn’t have the guts, the moral firmness to assert his own conscience because-horrors-he will engender political enemies. His Church has always viewed that no member can treat the fetus otherwise than as a human being since creation of the soul and its infusion take place at the moment of conception. But what is that stricture, reiterated by Augustine and Aquinas down through the centuries compared to the possible loss of the Chicago mayoralty?

Inside, he knows how base he is. He is pursued by Francis Thompson’s Hound of Heaven. All things, says God, betrayest thee who betrayest Me.

This is the classic sight of the usually sputtering Daley then-and why he sputters excitedly on all issues: buried in his unconscious abortion and his betrayal of conscience must be torture. He is no longer Richie the Princeling. He is a full 67 years old, having served six terms. He probably is in no serious danger of being defeated-at least not for standing up for what must be his true convictions as a Catholic on abortion. But it is clear he will not allow a thing-an issue, a view, a thought-to jeopardize this position. And so the stuttering and stammering shows his inner torture

Failing the first ultimate test of a public official whose first responsibility is his conscience, he is the embodiment of Sir Richard Rich.

He richly (pun intended) deserves the Sir Richard Rich Award.

And God help him.