(LifeSiteNews) — John Breen, a long-serving lay member of the Catholic Conference of Illinois’ (CCI) board of directors who publicly criticized heterodox Cardinal Blase Cupich’s plan to honor the radically pro-abortion Illinois Democratic Senator Richard (Dick) Durbin with a lifetime achievement award last fall, was involuntarily removed from his role last week.

On March 17, National Catholic Register (NCR) reported that Breen, a Loyola University Chicago professor who had served on the board since 2012, would be phased out from his role following a March 20 board meeting.

Back in September, Cupich, who is the board’s chairman, planned to award the pro-abortion Durbin with a lifetime achievement award for his work on “immigration reform.” Breen had asked that the archbishop of Chicago’s decision be added to a CCI board meeting agenda for discussion. The meeting was then abruptly canceled.

“All of our work is premised upon the dignity of the human person. And yet you’re going to honor a man who denies the dignity of a whole class of persons? It makes no sense. So, I don’t see why we, as a body, wouldn’t address the issue,” Breen reportedly said at the time.

The CCI is the official policy arm of the Catholic Church in Illinois. Its board is composed of the state’s six bishops and eight auxiliary bishops, with Cupich serving as its chairman. Breen had served as one of the group’s six diocesan lay representatives for the Diocese of Joliet.

Despite being planned for months, just one day after Breen’s request, the CCI meeting was canceled, purportedly because not enough bishops were able to attend the meeting. Another meeting of the bishops of the state of Illinois was also suddenly postponed.

READ: Two Cupich meetings with Catholic leaders ‘postponed indefinitely’: report

“I can understand why this looks bad because of the timing, but the reason the meeting didn’t take place was because we did not have quorum,” Kelsey Chisam, the group’s director of external relations, told NCR at the time.

Breen, however, was unconvinced, telling NCR‘s Jonathan Liedl that he believes the postponement was done due to the “public outcry” Cupich had been facing.

“I hope this criticism is sustained, and I hope that the cardinal reverses his position,” he remarked.

When asked by NCR whether his removal from the board was voluntary, Breen said “No,” without elaborating further.

In a statement to the Register, the CCI cited changes to its governance procedures, which will now rotate its members after they serve so many terms, as the reason for Breen’s and another of its “longest-serving members,” Michael Fitzgerald’s, departures.

“We recognize the sacrifice of time and talent each member makes and have amended our governance to require a staggered membership cycle of board members,” they said.

However, a source familiar with the situation told the NCR that CCI leadership began reviewing its enforcement of lay board member terms only after Breen publicly criticized Cupich.

The CCI and Breen did not respond to LifeSite’s requests for comment by publication time.

Indeed, the cardinal’s decision to honor Durbin, who has supported unrestricted abortion, including partial-birth abortion, was sharply criticized by several bishops across the country, including Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, Bishop Joseph Strickland, bishop emeritus of Tyler, Texas, and Archbishop Joseph Naumann, archbishop emeritus of Kansas City, Kansas.

After weeks of backlash, Durbin declined to receive the award. Cupich said he was “saddened” by this news and attempted to equate the murder of the unborn with the sufferings of death row inmates and those affected by so-called “climate change” and poverty.

READ: Sen. Durbin declines Cardinal Cupich’s award after global backlash over pro-abortion views

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) wrote in his 2004 memo on Communion and pro-abortion politicians: “Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia.… There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not, however, with regard to abortion and euthanasia.”

Pope Leo also appeared to defend Cupich’s decision to honor the pro-abortion politician, saying it’s important to look at “all the work” the senator has done and made the same erroneous equation of abortion to the death penalty and migration policy.

“Someone who says I’m against abortion but says I’m in favor of the death penalty is not really pro-life,” the pontiff said. “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.”

READ: Pope Leo says support for death penalty is not ‘pro-life,’ defends awarding pro-abortion Durbin

Cupich and Leo’s equation of abortion to other issues that are not intrinsically evil, such as migration policy, the death penalty, or policies regarding the environment, is in clear contradiction to Catholic teaching and Tradition.