The USCCB Should Reject Federal Funds

On Monday, Pope Francis sent a letter to the bishops of the United States. Criticizing the Trump administration’s plan to deport illegal immigrants, he wrote: “The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is . . . love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.” That’s clearly a response to Vice President JD Vance, who argued last month that ordo amoris means that it is perfectly natural and good for Americans to put their families, communities, and country first.

The pope’s letter also comes amid rising tensions between the Trump administration and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) over the more than $2 billion in taxpayer dollars that the USCCB and its affiliates received to resettle and support inadmissible aliens in America during the Biden administration. Just last Friday, citing pressure from the new administration, the USCCB laid off fifty staff members from its immigration and refugee services office. 

I respect the Holy Father, but his letter sends the wrong message. If the USCCB continues to criticize President Trump—who won the Catholic vote by an 18-point margin after campaigning on conducting a massive deportation operation—it could divide the laity and hurt the Church’s ability to work with the administration on other important priorities, such as ending the war in Ukraine and creating a pro-family culture.

A better solution would be for the USCCB to proactively refuse to accept federal funding for resettling and supporting immigrants.

This will be a difficult decision, no doubt. In 2023, the USCCB alone received almost $130 million from the federal government for immigration resettlement, which amounts to more than 50 percent of the conference’s total annual revenue and about fifty times the amount the USCCB typically spends on pro-life activities each year.

But I know from experience that the benefits of foregoing federal money far outweigh the costs.

In 2015, serving as the president of Wyoming Catholic College, I rejected federal funds to preserve our school’s religious liberty. It was the right call. Many religious colleges that accept federal funds have struggled in recent years, but Wyoming Catholic has thrived. Free from infringements by the federal government, its enrollment has increased, and its unapologetically Catholic formation has endured.

A USCCB free of federal funding will have even more positive effects—for the country, for the migrants, and for the Church.

It will be good for our country because these federal programs have unfortunately become a core part of the system that draws illegal aliens to the United States, enriching drug cartels, overwhelming American communities, and causing untold human suffering. Just ask Laken Riley’s family—or any of the parents who have lost children to fentanyl poisoning in the past five years.

It will be good for the migrants (many of whom are Catholics themselves) because the current system encourages them to break the law and puts them in grave danger. In 2022 alone, U.S. Border Patrol recorded 895 immigrant deaths near the Southwest border. And according to some estimates, one in three women who crossed the border was sexually assaulted on her journey.

Finally, rejecting federal funding will be good for the Church. The Catholic Church’s central mission for two thousand years has been the salvation of souls, and its greatest gift to those in need is the good news of the gospel. But government money comes with the caveat that it cannot be used for evangelization. If the Church rejects federal funds, its work will profit the kingdom of God more.

Some in the USCCB may disagree with my suggestion. That’s to be expected. Billions of federal dollars have provided a powerful incentive to ignore the Church’s nuanced teaching on immigration. Many Catholics today believe that refusing to receive federal funds to resettle and support more immigrants is an offense to their human dignity and a failure of our charity.

It is not. The Church served the poor and the downtrodden for thousands of years before we were on the American taxpayer’s dime, and we can serve them even better for the next thousand years if we get off the federal government’s payroll. Rejecting federal funding won’t rob a single person of human dignity, but it will be a powerful and prudent first step for the Church to take toward restoring an orderly immigration system that respects the sovereignty of our country, helps the needy, and promotes the gospel.