“Judas was the first Catholic bishop to accept a government grant.” — Peter Kreeft
Today, according to its website, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ mission statement is “to promote the greater good which the Catholic Church offers humankind, especially through forms and programs of the apostolate fittingly adapted to the circumstances of time and place.” The conference employs over three hundred souls; laymen, deacons, priests, and religious staff the various departments, which include Migration and Refugee Services, Cultural Diversity in the Church, Domestic Social Development, International Justice and Peace, Resettlement Services, and Customer and Client Relations — to name just a few.
The daily operations of any vast bureaucracy require enormous sums to continue its mission and remain active in the public square, and the bishops’ conference is no exception. In the latest financial report (which dates to only 2018), the audit disclosed total assets of the USCCB and its affiliates of $365 million, with “total operating revenues, gains, and other supports” of $203 million.
As listed previously, there are many offices — a grand total of thirty-three — which make up the bishops’ conference. It can be said that certain departments require more funding than others, as determined by forecasted operating budgets, but as the most recent financial report suggests, the institution is financially stable and even prosperous. Yet the Conference has in recent years sought out and successfully received millions in federal funds.
By far the largest recipient of taxpayer money within the conference is the umbrella of the Resettlement Services office. According to usaspending.gov, the the bishops’ group received over $2 billion from the federal government between 2008 and 2015 for the purpose of refugee resettlement. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was one of nine major recipients to have been contracted by the federal government to “resettle refugees and asylums,” as stated by James Simpson of Foundation Watch in a piece for the Capital Research Center.
Speaking on the perhaps distorted nature of these massive funding recipients (designated as NGOs), Mr. Simpson further commented: “While six of the nine contractors are affiliated with religious groups, the false notion that they are charitable organizations just doing the Lord’s work needs to be corrected. They are federal contractors, relying on the government for most, and sometimes most all, of their income. This is big business. They do the government’s bidding, whether it honors religious principles or not.”
Deal W. Hudson, former Crisis editor and advisor to President George W. Bush on Catholic policy issues, expressed his own concerns in an interview with LifeSiteNews. “How can either institution call itself ‘Catholic’ when they have created financial dependency of the federal government?” Mr. Hudson asked. “Doesn’t this level of funding make the USCCB hesitant to publicly criticize the Congress and the administration on abortion, same-sex marriage, fetal stem cell research, and euthanasia?”
In his blunt, straightforward response to Bostock v. Clayton County on the Senate floor, Senator Joshua Hawley urgently reminded people of faith that “it’s not time for religious conservatives to shut up. No, we’ve done that for too long. No, it’s time for religious conservatives to stand up and speak out.” The extent to which the USCCB will take heed of this call to duty remains questionable. Will the Church be forced by the federal government to give up its tax-exempt status, as first proposed by Beto O’Rourke, or will it rescind its tax-exempt status out of free will, realizing that the current political reality poses a grave threat to Catholic social doctrine?…
The above comes from a June 19 story in Crisis magazine.
God bless Senator Hawley (and others speaking up). He’s young (at 40, the youngest US Senator) and graduated from Stanford and Yale Law School. Yet, this young evangelical seems to understand that religious liberty is under attack more than most bishops.
He is right. It’s (past) time to speak out.
And Francis added to the Litany of Our Lady Solacium migrantium (solace of the immigrants). He’s wait a long time for my Peter’s Pence!
In a June 20 letter to the presidents of bishops’ conferences, Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for the Divine Liturgy and the Discipline of the Sacraments, said the invocations “Mater misericordiae,” “Mater spei,” and “Solacium migrantium” should be inserted in the Marian litany. In his letter, Cardinal Sarah noted where each invocation should be added, using the Latin formulations.
“Mater misericordiae,” which means, “Mother of mercy,” should be placed after “Mater Ecclesiae.” “Mater spei,” which means “Mother of hope,” should follow “Mater divinae gratiae,” and “Solacium migrantium,” which means “Comfort of migrants,” should follow “Refugium peccatorum.”
Thanks for providing the facts of this matter. Both the Pope and Cardinal Sarah worked on this, reiterating the Church’s long-standing concern for migrants.
Emigration and immigration are fine when people do not lie, steal nor cheat to get into a country because they are sex trafficking or bringing in contraband, and in some cases that is happening. Often drug dealers use women and children as shields to disguise their drug trafficking and so forth.
When I pray for emigrants and immigrants I pray for their safety, and that God’s will be done, so all sides profit from it and none on either side are the worse for it.
As Latina I support and pray for the migrants. Not criminals who invade our country and in order to get everything for free from the government keep voting for the same Marxist people they used to vote in their own country and the reason they had to leave.
#DEFUNDTHEBISHOPS
Judas was never a Catholic bishop. And he did not accept a government grant. He received 30 pieces of silver from the chief priests.
I think Dr. Kreeft knows that, but was trying to make a point. If you’re not a Catholic, maybe you don’t understand that we view bishops as successors to the Apostles and Judas was an Apostle, even if a bad one.
That said, Dr. Kreeft does teach at a Jesuit university, not a Catholic one.
I wonder what sort of currency was used to get McCarrick, Biden, Newsom, Cuomo and Pelosi to betray our Lord.
Judas died before Pentecost. He was replaced by Matthias before the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. It is the Twelve Apostles that were filled with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost the the bishops of the Catholic Church are successors to.
I want the Bishops teaching the Creed of the apostles. Maybe also salvation through a narrow path to eternal life and salvation. The following offices are not included in our Creed: Migration and Refugee Services, Cultural Diversity in the Church, Domestic Social Development, International Justice and Peace, Resettlement Services, and Customer and Client Relations. Pope Francis should just leave USA bishops to do their duty to their faithful and restore holiness to the American Catholic Church devastated by the spirit of Vatican Council II.
This is a very unfair opinion piece. It is ridiculous to criticize the bishops for something you are afraid they might do. It is like someone seeing you walk into a Catholic Church and saying “That person might molest a child.” The whole thing is kind of an insult to our intelligence.
I don’t know, anonymous– I am under the impression that the bishops are not being criticized for what they might do, but what they have not done. They seem to this reader to be very hesitant to face persecution for swimming against the strong cultural currents represented by the LGBT juggernaut and its new manifestation in BLM, a group whose core beliefs are virulently anti-Catholic. It is a heavy cross to bear, to lose one’s job for examining critically the BLM core beliefs from a Catholic perspective (see Timothy Gordon’s plight-dismissal from a supposedly Catholic school). It raises the obvious question as to whether the bishops’ dependence upon federal monies has come at the price of surrender to the gods of this age, even as it seems fairly clear that most laity raised the white flag years ago. And this raises yet another question: what is Catholicism nowadays? If it is known by what is preached, I would be hard-pressed to know what it is.
This article should bring out the usual suspects, myself included. I’ve had a little experience, emphasis on little, relative to the church being “funded” by the government. It is a two-edged sword. This is how the government gets a lot of stuff done: it contracts with private, usually non-profit agencies to do its work around the country. It might, for example, put a contract out to bid for helping refugees get settled, get a place to live, get a job, start to learn English, etc.. NGOs bid for the contract to do that work if it fits their Vision and Mission. The Catholic church usually does this through its Catholic Charities organizations. If they win the contract they will start doing the work and submit bills to the appropriate department of the government. The programs don’t happen in a vacuum. Staf must be hired, extensive accounting is required and government auditors are often visitors. If the church NGOs didn’t do this work, the government would have to hire more people,etc. If groups like Catholic Charities didn’t win the contracts the work would not get done because the church doesn’t have the funds to carry out its social mission, and people would suffer for no good reason. Most parishes have a few dollars that they can give to the poor who come to the door, but they can’t tackle the big issues.
The primary purpose of the Church is to bring souls to Christ. However, by taking government money there can be no mention of religion in the services it provides. The Church agencies then become no different than any other secular organization. In my opinion, it would be far better for the USCCB’s agencies to provide services on a much smaller scale using the USCCB’s own money (which comes from us Catholics in the pews). At least then there could be some evangelization of the clients they serve, without being pushy or annoying.
John, I would agree with you if we Catholics were willing to pay the price. What little is collected each Sunday barely keeps the parish operating. Catholic Charities, nation wide, served over 12 million people. It takes money to operate each of the CCs. The directors need to be paid, the accountants need to be paid, the immigration lawyers need to be paid, the community organizers need to be paid. Each diocese would have to come up with millions of dollars to replicate the work the government pays for. I’m OK with your idea, if people will start giving their 10% instead of a couple of bucks a week.
Bob One, the USCCB is primarily a group that provides religious cover to left wing ideas and practices. With a few name changes, as an organization, it’s only been around since 1966 and if it went away tomorrow, few would miss it.
The money they spend on travel, lodging, meals and entertainment is staggering, and why? So they can get together and rubber stamp a Democrat agenda? No thanks, time to pull their funding and let them stay home and tend to their local flocks.
Kristin, I suspect that you are right when you suggest that nobody would notice if the USCCB went away. Much like each diocese, most people would not notice if the chancery went away. Most people, I suspect, don’t know the name of their Bishop. On the other hand, it would be good if we had a national approach to the church and its teachings. I don’t agree that we should end the organization, but it needs a lot of administrative reform to make it effective. Sometimes I wonder if the Democratic party tries to emulate the church rather than the other way around. Jesus was a pretty liberal brown-skinned man if you read the New Testament. I rather like the image of the church attributed to St. Francis – teach the Gospel’ use words if you must! Our job as followers of Christ is to feed the poor, to clothe the naked … well, you know the rest.
Bob One, it’s not the administration of the USCCB that needs reform, it’s the makeup of the organization. Decades of appointments have populated it with very left wing prelates whose politics seem to supersede their Catholic heirarchical obligations. When Church duties are merely political works the message of Christ is lost.
Lastly, Jesus would not have given Herod a pass on the slaughter of the innocents on account of the man’s ability to build cities. Many bishops support fanatic abortion candidates and throw shade to them based on other perceived abilities.