Sen. Dick Durbin (Screen Capture)

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Dick Durbin (D.-Ill.) said in a speech on the Senate floor yesterday that he believes American culture is about “flag, family, God.” This comes just five weeks after he voted against cloture on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, thus helping to block a final Senate vote on a bill that would have prohibited aborting a baby after 20 weeks into pregnancy.

Durbin made his point about "flag, family and God" while arguing that legal immigration should not be diminished and that people who came to the United States illegally as minors—so-called “Dreamers”—should be allowed to stay in the United States.

Durbin started the concluding part of his speech by talking about his grandmother, whom he said came to America “with her Catholic prayer book from the country of Lithuania.”

“All these people who have come to this country—every single one of us brings a story, a family story,” Durbin said.

“In most cultures, in the American culture, the family unit is our strength—flag, family, God,” he said.

After Durbin voted to block the prohibition on late-term abortions, Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield publicly declared that Durbin was barred from Holy Communion until he repented.

"Because his voting record in support of abortion over many years constitutes 'obstinate persistence in manifest grave sin,' the determination continues that Sen. Durbin is not to be admitted to Holy Communion until he repents of this sin," Bishop Paprocki declared. "This provision is intended not to punish, but to bring about a change of heart. Sen. Durbin was once pro-life. I sincerely pray that he will repent and return to being pro-life. the excerpt from Durbin’s speech where he argues that

Here is the passage from Sen. Durbin's Senate floor speech on Wednesday, where he said America is about “family, faith, God:”

“Those people who came here from far-reaching shores came here for a lot of reasons. My grandmother was one of them. She brought my mom. My mom was an immigrant to this country. I don’t know all the reasons that my grandmother came here, but I know there was one reason she came. She had three little kids, and she carried a bag and had with her a Catholic prayer book from the country of Lithuania. It was written in Lithuanian. The Russians were in control of Lithuania at the time, and they had prohibited prayer books written in Lithuanian. My grandmother, whom I never knew, was one tough lady. She was willing to pick up this prayer book—this contraband in Lithuania—and bring it to the United States of America. I don’t know if she ever took a constitutional law course, but she knew there was freedom in this country. Nobody was going to stop her from praying from her prayer book when she got to the United States. I am sure economics had more to do with her coming, but that was part of the reason my family made it to this country. It is something I have never forgotten, and I have told the story many times.

“All these people who have come to this country—every single one of us brings a story, a family story. Now we are being told it is a mistake—it is a mistake to continue legal immigration to America.

“The President’s proposal on immigration would cut legal immigration to this country almost in half. Currently, our Nation of 320, 330 million people brings in approximately 1.1 million legal immigrants a year—1 million legal immigrants; 320 million Americans. It is not an overwhelming number in comparison. On average more than sixty percent of the 1.1 million people are members of families of those already here.

“Do you just ask to come in, and we let you come to America if you have a family member here? Of course not. You wait and you wait. For example, in the Philippines, you may wait 20 years for a member of the family to be reunited with someone who is already an American citizen—20 years waiting in line. The President’s proposal—the one that has come to the floor of the Senate that got 39 votes—said we ought to cut the number of legal immigrants almost in half, tell those people to wait longer or stay where they are.