Pope's point-man on migration and aid concerned about USAID cuts, alarmed at US migrant crackdown

[February 10, 2025]  By NICOLE WINFIELD

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis’ point-man on migration and development has urged the Trump administration to remember Christian principles about caring for others, saying people are being “terrorized” by the U.S. crackdown on migrants and vital church-run aid programs are being jeopardized by the planned gutting of USAID.

Cardinal Michael Czerny, a Czech-born Canadian Jesuit, is one of the cardinals most closely associated with Francis’ pontificate and heads the Vatican office responsible for migrants, the environment, the church’s Caritas Internationalis charity and development.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Czerny said every incoming government has the right to review its foreign aid budget, and to even reform an agency like USAID. But he said it’s another thing to dismantle an agency after it has made funding commitments.

“There are programs underway and expectations and we might even say commitments, and to break commitments is a serious thing,” Czerny said Sunday. “So while every government is qualified to review its budget in the case of foreign aid, it would be good to have some warning because it takes time to find other sources of funding or to find other ways of meeting the problems we have.”

USAID is the main international humanitarian and development arm of the U.S. government and in 2023 managed more than $40 billion in combined appropriations. The Trump administration and billionaire ally Elon Musk have targeted USAID hardest so far in their challenge of the federal government: A sweeping funding freeze has shut down most of USAID’s programs worldwide, though a federal judge on Friday put a temporary halt to plans to pull thousands of agency staffers off the job.

One of USAID’s biggest non-governmental recipients of funding is Catholic Relief Services, the aid agency of the Catholic Church in the U.S., which has already sounded the alarm about the cuts. Other programs, including Caritas international programs at the diocesan and national levels, are also being impacted directly or indirectly, Czerny said.

“I think people are still reeling from the news and beginning to figure out how to respond,” he said.

While large, the USAID budget is less than one percentage point of the U.S. gross domestic product and a fraction of the biblical call to tithe 10% of one’s income, Czerny noted.

Czerny acknowledged Francis has often complained about Western aid to poor countries being saddled with conditions that may be incompatible with Catholic doctrine, such as programs promoting gender ideology. The Trump administration has said it is targeting these “woke” programs in its USAID cuts.

”If if the government thinks that its programs have been distorted by ideology, well, then they should reform the programs," Czerny said. "Many people would say that shutting down is not the best way to reform them.”

Cardinal Michael Czerny meets with journalists at the Vatican press hall, in Rome, on March 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)

Another area of concern for the Vatican and Catholic hierarchy in the U.S. is the Trump administration's crackdown on undocumented migrants. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said last week that more than 8,000 people had been arrested in immigration enforcement actions since Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration. Some are being held in federal prisons while others are being held at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.

“A crackdown is a terrible way to administer affairs and much less to administer justice,” said Czerny, whose own family immigrated to Canada as refugees after World War II. “And so I’m very sorry that many people are being hurt and indeed terrorized by the measures."

“All we can hope for is that the people, God’s people and the people of goodwill, will help and protect those vulnerable people who are suddenly made much more vulnerable,” he added.

The U.S. conference of Catholic bishops put out an unusually critical statement after President Donald Trump’s initial executive orders, saying those “focused on the treatment of immigrants and refugees, foreign aid, expansion of the death penalty, and the environment, are deeply troubling and will have negative consequences, many of which will harm the most vulnerable among us.”

It was a strong rebuke from the U.S. Catholic hierarchy, which considers abortion to be the “preeminent priority” for Catholic voters and had cheered the 2022 Supreme Court decision to end constitutional protections for abortion that was made possible by Trump-appointed justices. Trump won 54% of Catholic voters in the 2024 election, a wider margin than the 50% he won of Catholic voters in the 2020 election won by President Joe Biden, a Catholic.

Inspired by the biblical call to “welcome the stranger,” Francis has made caring for migrants a priority of his pontificate, demanding that countries welcome, protect, promote and integrate those fleeing conflicts, poverty and climate disasters. Francis has also said governments are expected to do so to the limits of their capacity.

“And I don’t think that is any country except perhaps Lebanon, and maybe one or two other exceptions who are really over the limit,” Czerny said. “So I think it’s incumbent on us first of all as human beings, as citizens, as believers, and in our case, as Christians.”

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