Were you wondering how long it would take for them to start complaining about the loss of USAID monies.

Pope's Aid Man Suggests USAID Has 'Commitments' on Funds

https://www.newsmax.com/world/globaltalk/vatican-us-usaid-pope-migration/2025/02/09/id/1198447/

Monday, 10 February 2025 07:16 AM EST

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 is 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."