Heidi Schlumpf is an associate professor of communication at Aurora University outside Chicago and the author of Elizabeth Johnson: Questing for God. 

Posts By This Author

Becoming a 'Seamless Garment'

by Heidi Schlumpf 04-25-2018
Single-issue advocacy leads to inconsistency on life issues.
Ryan Rodrick Beiler / Shutterstock.com

Ryan Rodrick Beiler / Shutterstock.com

THIRTY-FIVE YEARS ago, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago called for a “consistent ethic of life”—a broad, underlying attitude of respect for human life and dignity that would apply to issues as diverse as abortion, peace, and the death penalty.

In a 1983 lecture that landed him—and the consistent ethic—on the front page of The New York Times, Bernardin drew connections between nuclear arms and abortion: “The principle which structures both cases, war and abortion, needs to be upheld in both places. It cannot be successfully sustained on one count and simultaneously eroded in a similar situation,” he said.

If only we had listened.

A Church At The Crossroads

by Heidi Schlumpf 03-01-2005

Sex abuse scandal, priest shortages, celibacy, ordaining women: The issues roiling the Catholic Church offer challenges - and hope? - for the future.

No Place to Stand

by Heidi Schlumpf 06-01-2004

When you're Christian, progressive, and "pro-life," voting your conscience is often easier said than done.