Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 18, 2025 / 14:40 pm (CNA).
Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is urging the Trump administration to reverse the cancellation of USAID’s “lifesaving and life-giving assistance” following the official announcement that the majority of its programs have been cut.
In a March 10 statement posted to X, Secretary of State Marco Rubio reported the completion of the International Humanitarian Assistance evaluation. “After a six-week review we are officially canceling 83% of the programs at USAID,” he said.
“The 5,200 contracts that are now canceled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve (and in some cases even harmed) the core national interests of the United States,” he continued.
“In consultation with Congress, we intend for the remaining 18% of programs we are keeping (approximately 1,000) to now be administered more effectively under the State Department,” Rubio concluded.
In response, CRS in a March 17 press release stated: “As part of the Catholic Church, Catholic Relief Services believes that human life is a precious gift from God that must be protected and nurtured.”
The nongovernmental organization, which carries out the commitment of the U.S. bishops to assist the poor and vulnerable overseas, explained that during the six-week review, it had to halt its “U.S. government-supported work due to the lack of payments.”
The CRS statement said that “food in warehouses could not be distributed to the hungry and women and children could not get vital health and nutrition services.”
“In addition,” the statement said, “last week’s termination of dozens of CRS’ lifesaving projects will permanently cut off critical aid to more than 20 million people worldwide. Eleven of these terminated projects had received humanitarian waivers.”
“These programs do more than save lives. They help lift communities and countries out of poverty. They support local faith-based and church partners that provide services and stability to their communities and to their countries.”
“In the holy season of Lent in this special jubilee year, Pope Francis invites Catholics and all people to become artisans of hope by building communities rooted in solidarity.”
The statement highlighted that the United States has a responsibility to global aid.
“CRS programs attend to the needs of very poor communities. As the most powerful and wealthy country in the world, our government also has a moral responsibility to assist the most vulnerable. As Pope Paul VI said in his encyclical Populorum Progressio: ‘It is a very important duty of the advanced nations to help the developing nations.’”
“By ending these lifesaving programs, our government is not only neglecting our nation’s responsibility but also weakening the very foundations of peace, stability, and prosperity.”
“We urge the administration to reverse these terminations and issue prompt payments to continue this lifesaving and life-giving assistance,” CRS concluded.
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It’s all about the money. It’s always been about the money. I find these CRS types in the Church cravenly disgusting.
CRS has offered some disingenuous rationales for it wanting US government funds to further its questionable mission.
Specifically, CRS cites Pope Paul VI’s Populorum progressio, in turn quoted or drawn from Gaudium et Spes paragraph 86. NOTE: Gaudium et Spes neither explicitly nor implicitly calls for a ‘Catholic’ NGO to seek government funds to advance the teachings of Christ. Nor does Paragraph 86 of GS call for developed nations to aid developing nations through NGOs acting in the name of religion.
Gaudium et Spes No. 86 states:
“Each and every nation must produce more and better goods and products, so that all its citizens may live truly human lives and so that it may contribute to the common development of the human race.”
a) Developing nations should take great pains to seek as the object for progress to express and secure the total human fulfillment of their citizens. They should bear in mind that progress arises and grows above all out of the labor and genius of the nations themselves because it has to be based, not only on foreign aid, but especially on the full utilization of their own resources, and on the development of their own culture and traditions. Those who exert the greatest influence on others should be outstanding in this respect.
Finally, GS notes: c) It is the role of the international community to coordinate and promote development, but in such a way that the resources earmarked for this purpose will be allocated as effectively as possible, and with complete equity.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that ‘Catholic’ Relief Services (as well as CWR readers) actually read paragraph 86 of GS. It ends with this reminder of Christ:
“d) In many cases there is an urgent need to revamp economic and social structures. But one must guard against proposals of technical solutions that are untimely. This is particularly true of those solutions providing man with material conveniences, but nevertheless contrary to man’s spiritual nature and advancement. For “not by bread alone does man live, but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4)”
TAKE HEED, CRS. TAKE UP AND read. Then pray and repent.
IOW, developed nations would do best to TEACH developing nations to develop, produce, and use their (developed nations) own resources, culture and traditions so that ALL nations may contribute to the common good of all men throughout the world.
Edit: Last paragraph: “…developing nations should…use their (DEVELOPING nations) own resources,…”