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Feuding with Pope Leo, Trump Cancels $11 Million Contract for Catholic Charity Helping Homeless Migrant Children
"The administration chose to strip funding from a Catholic ministry that cares for traumatized children," said one Catholic commentator. "The real reason is retaliation."
Apr 17, 2026
In a move that the archbishop of Miami called "baffling," President Donald Trump suddenly cut ties with a Catholic charity dedicated to helping unaccompanied migrant children in what many interpreted as a gesture of contempt amid his feud with Pope Leo XIV.
In an op-ed for the Miami Herald on Wednesday, Archbishop Thomas Wenski explained that Trump had abruptly cut off $11 million of funding and ended more than 60 years of government partnership with the Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of Miami, which “has worked closely with the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to provide shelter and other services to thousands of unaccompanied minor children of all nationalities.”
Wenski said: "For more than 60 years, the Archdiocese of Miami’s services for unaccompanied minors have been recognized for their excellence and have served as a model for other agencies throughout the country. Our track record in serving this vulnerable population is unmatched. Yet, the Archdiocese of Miami’s Catholic Charities’ services for unaccompanied minors has been stripped of funding and will be forced to shut down within three months."
Emily Hillard, the press secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), told the Herald that the relationship had been terminated because the number of unaccompanied minors entering the US is “significantly lower” under the Trump administration than under that of former President Joe Biden.
According to HHS, the number of unaccompanied children under the agency's care is about 1,900, a significant decrease from the peak of the Biden administration, when it held about 22,000.
She said the Office of Refugee Resettlement was canceling the contract as part of a process of “closing and consolidating unused facilities as the Trump administration continues efforts to stop illegal entry and the smuggling and trafficking of unaccompanied alien children."
"The real reason is retaliation."
But while Wenski acknowledged that fewer unaccompanied minors are entering the US, he pointed out that the Miami charity’s facilities are hardly “unused.”
Wenski said its Children's Village facility in Palmetto Bay can hold up to 81 minors, whom it helps to place in foster care, reunite with family members, and provide supportive services.
He said, “It is baffling that the US government would shut down a program that it would be hard-pressed to replicate at the level of competence and excellence that Catholic Charities has achieved if and when future waves of unaccompanied minors reach our shores.”
While the White House did not name Pope Leo as a factor in Trump’s sudden decision to gut the Catholic Charities funding, Christopher Hale, the author of the Pope-centric newsletter Letters from Leo, argues that “the timing tells you everything about the motive.”
Trump slashed the Catholic Charities funding just two days after lambasting Leo for being "WEAK on Crime and terrible for Foreign Policy" following the pontiff's criticism of his war in Iran.
Leo responded that he has “no fear of the Trump administration” and will “continue to speak out loudly against war.” On Thursday, Leo added that “the world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants" who spend billions of dollars to wage war and condemned “those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic, and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.”
“They turn a blind eye to the fact that billions of dollars are spent on killing and devastation, yet the resources needed for healing, education, and restoration are nowhere to be found," Leo said.
"This is the context in which the administration chose to strip funding from a Catholic ministry that cares for traumatized children," Hale wrote. "The real reason is retaliation, and the pattern stretches back to the administration’s first days."
He noted that in December, Trump also canceled funding for six years to the Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, which operates a migrant shelter in McAllen and has assisted more than 500,000 migrants since its founding in 2014.
The government's contract with Catholic Charities in Miami dates back to 1960, when—as part of what was called Operation "Pedro Pan"—the organization sheltered more than 14,000 Cuban children whose parents had sent them alone to Florida by plane or by boat to flee the revolution led by Fidel Castro.
The Trump administration has acknowledged that a large new wave of migrants could be imminent as people flee the devastating consequences of its fuel blockade in Cuba, which military leaders have acknowledged could cause a "humanitarian crisis." In recent days, reports have said Trump is mulling plans to attack Cuba militarily.
Last month, SOUTHCOM commander Gen. Francis Donovan said the US military was coordinating with the Department of Homeland Security to prepare to house any potential influx of refugees at the US military prison in Guantánamo Bay, a proposal that has been decried by dozens of human rights groups.
Catholic leaders in Miami told the Herald that blocking funds to the Catholic Charities and forcing the closure of the Children’s Village will needlessly traumatize dozens of children who have come there for refuge and have already endured enormous hardship, many having arrived in the US after fleeing poverty and violent conflict.
“You don’t cross several borders, you don’t walk across Mexico if you are 10 or 12 years old without being exposed and suffering trauma of one type or the other,” Wenski said.
Wenski and Catholic Charities CEO Pedro Routsis-Arroyo have asked the federal government to reconsider pulling the funding. Without it, they say many of the children will be forced to relocate to other shelter programs, which can create more trauma and instability.
"Who loses?" Routsis-Arroyo said. "The children lose."
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US Bishops Issue Rare Message Denouncing Trump's 'Indiscriminate Mass Deportation' Campaign
"Not since the civil rights era—and never with such unanimity—have American bishops so directly challenged a president’s policies," wrote one chronicler of the Catholic Church.
Nov 14, 2025
More than 200 Catholic bishops joined in condemning the Trump administration’s attacks on immigrants in an extraordinary statement on Wednesday.
The "special message" was issued at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' (USCCB) annual fall plenary, at which a majority of the nation's bishops were in attendance. They denounced the administration's "indiscriminate mass deportation" campaign, and called for an end to "dehumanizing rhetoric and violence."
Such a message is exceptionally rare. It was the first time in 12 years that the USCCB has issued such a joint statement, which it says is reserved for cases it deems "particularly urgent."
The statement was passed with 216 votes of approval, while just five bishops voted against it and three abstained. There are around 270 actively serving bishops in the US, meaning the vote represents the vast majority opinion among these high-ranking church officials. After the vote passed, the declaration was met with sustained applause.
The bishops laid out a litany of ways the Trump administration has violated the rights of immigrants over the past year and engaged in dehumanizing rhetoric directed at them.
"We are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement," the bishops said. "We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants. We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care. We lament that some immigrants in the United States have arbitrarily lost their legal status. We are troubled by threats against the sanctity of houses of worship and the special nature of hospitals and schools. We are grieved when we meet parents who fear being detained when taking their children to school, and when we try to console family members who have already been separated from their loved ones."
The White House often claims that the immigrants it targets for deportation are violent criminals and terrorists. But the latest immigration data shows that around 72% of current detainees have no criminal convictions. Previous data from the libertarian Cato Institute has shown that 93% of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) book-ins were for non-criminals and nonviolent offenders.
Members of the Trump administration often engage in openly hostile rhetoric toward immigrants, including Vice President JD Vance, whose wife's parents immigrated from India, and who is a recent Catholic convert who often speaks about the role of faith in his politics.
Vance has described immigration to the US as a “historic invasion” of the nation. He has admitted to spreading false rumors about Haitian asylum seekers, who’d fled violence and instability in their home countries to settle legally in the US; during the 2024 presidential campaign, he amplified baseless claims that the migrants were eating the pets of their American neighbors. Vance has derided the idea of people from "different cultures" moving to the US, saying it's "totally reasonable and acceptable for American citizens to look at their next-door neighbors and say, 'I want to live next to people who I have something in common with,'" including speaking the same language.
The bishops thoroughly repudiated this worldview in their statement.
"Despite obstacles and prejudices, generations of immigrants have made enormous contributions to the well-being of our nation. We, as Catholic bishops, love our country and pray for its peace and prosperity. For this very reason, we feel compelled now in this environment to raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity," they said. "Catholic teaching exhorts nations to recognize the fundamental dignity of all persons, including immigrants."
The bishops called for “meaningful reform of our nation’s immigration laws and procedures,” adding that “human dignity and national security are not in conflict” and that “both are possible if people of goodwill work together.”
"We recognize that nations have a responsibility to regulate their borders and establish a just and orderly immigration system for the sake of the common good," they said. "Without such processes, immigrants face the risk of trafficking and other forms of exploitation. Safe and legal pathways serve as an antidote to such risks."
The bishops' statement follows a call by Pope Leo XIV last week for "deep reflection" about the way immigrants are treated in the United States. The Chicago-born Pope, the first American to ever serve as the church's patriarch, said that "many people who have lived for years and years and years, never causing problems, have been deeply affected by what is going on right now.”
According to the American Immigration Council, more than 80% of the undocumented immigrants in the US in 2022 had been living in the country for over a decade. Meanwhile, numerous studies have found that both undocumented and documented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born citizens.
The bishops’ denunciation comes at a time when Americans have turned considerably against Trump’s immigration policies: Where he had double-digit approval on the issue near the start of his presidency, at the beginning of November, net support for his immigration policy was at -7 according to polls from The Economist/YouGov.
As Christopher Hale, a writer who has chronicled Leo's papacy, wrote, the bishops' statement may be the strongest collective denunciation of a US president ever made by the Catholic hierarchy.
"Not since the civil rights era—and never with such unanimity—have American bishops so directly challenged a president’s policies," Hale said.
Also at the plenary, El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz, the chair of the USCCB's migration committee, announced the launch of the conference's "You Are Not Alone" Initiative, which aims to provide support and accompaniment to migrants at risk of deportation under the Trump administration.
"Our immigrant brothers and sisters… are living in a deep state of fear,” Seitz said. “Many are too afraid to work, send their children to school, or avail themselves to the sacraments.”
He added: "Because we’re pastors… we care about our people, and we care particularly for those who are most vulnerable and those who are most in need.”
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Pope Francis Dies at 88 After Final Appeal for Gaza Cease-Fire
"Will the millions who will mourn his death these coming days respect this wish of his? Will they care for Gazans and Palestinians the way he did?"
Apr 21, 2025
The Vatican announced Monday that Pope Francis has died at the age of 88, hours after he appeared at an Easter mass and appealed for an end to Israel's war on the Gaza Strip.
The pope's Easter address, read aloud by Archbishop Diego Ravelli, decried the "terrible conflict" in Gaza that "continues to cause death and destruction and to create a dramatic and deplorable humanitarian situation."
"I appeal to the warring parties: call a cease-fire, release the hostages, and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace!" said the message from the pope, an outspoken opponent of military conflict and war profiteers, climate destruction, and runaway economic inequality.
"In the face of the cruelty of conflicts that involve defenceless civilians and attack schools, hospitals, and humanitarian workers, we cannot allow ourselves to forget that it is not targets that are struck, but persons, each possessed of a soul and human dignity," the pope's address continued.
News of Pope Francis' death came after a bout with double pneumonia left him hospitalized for more than a month. The Vatican did not specify a cause of death in its announcement.
The Nation's John Nichols wrote Sunday that Pope Francis' calls for peace have made him "arguably the most consistent high-profile defender of the humanity of the Palestinian people during a period when the Israeli assault on Gaza has been pursued with relentless violence."
Nichols continued:
With a boldness and specificity that has often sparked controversy, this pope has challenged economic injustice, racism, environmental neglect, militarism, and the abuses of new technologies that increase inequality. He has faced his share of criticism, not just from conservatives who disapprove of his views but also from reformers who sincerely wish that he would do more to modernize the church. Yet, in a time of too much indifference and impunity, this pope has remained uniquely engaged with the embattled regions that political and media elites neglect or abandon.
That's been especially true when it comes to Gaza, where Pope Francis has long argued for cease-fires, arms blockades, aid convoys, and a diplomatic urgency that recognizes that Palestinians and Israelis are "fraternal peoples [who] have the right to live in peace."
In a tribute to Pope Francis, Palestinian theologian Munther Isaac wrote Monday that "he conveyed true compassion to Palestinians, most notably to those in Gaza during this genocide."
"The pope left our world today, and the occupation and the wall remained. Even worse, he left our world while a genocide continues to unfold," Isaac wrote, pointing to the pontiff's call for a thorough international investigation of Israel's assault on Gaza.
"Today I wonder: Will the millions who will mourn his death these coming days respect this wish of his?" Isaac asked. "Will they care for Gazans and Palestinians the way he did?"
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Pope Calls Trump's Mass Deportation Plan 'Major Crisis'
The pontiff also rejected Vice President JD Vance's attempt to use a Catholic tenet to serve the administration's anti-migrant agenda.
Feb 11, 2025
Pope Francis on Tuesday reaffirmed his condemnation of U.S. President Donald Trump's anti-migrant agenda and explicitly rebuked what critics have called Vice President JD Vance's misinterpretation of Catholic theology in an attempt to justify the Republican administration's mass deportation plan.
In a letter to U.S. bishops, the pontiff wrote: "I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations. The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality.
What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly.
The Pope acknowledged "the right of a nation to defend itself and keep communities safe from those who have committed violent or serious crimes while in the country or prior to arrival," but also asserted that "the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness."
The Pope continued:
This is not a minor issue: An authentic rule of law is verified precisely in the dignified treatment that all people deserve, especially the poorest and most marginalized. The true common good is promoted when society and government, with creativity and strict respect for the rights of all—as I have affirmed on numerous occasions—welcomes, protects, promotes, and integrates the most fragile, unprotected, and vulnerable. This does not impede the development of a policy that regulates orderly and legal migration. However, this development cannot come about through the privilege of some and the sacrifice of others. What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly.
While not explicitly naming him, the Pope's letter refutes remarks by Vance, who last month invoked the medieval Catholic concept of ordo amoris—which posits a ranking of affection with the deity figures God and Jesus at the highest level, followed by self, family, friends, and others—to show that Christians should love citizens more than migrants.
"Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups," the missive states. "In other words: The human person is not a mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings! The human person is a subject with dignity who, through the constitutive relationship with all, especially with the poorest, can gradually mature in his identity and vocation."
"The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the Good Samaritan... that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception," the pontiff said.
Imagine you're just some 30-something guy who converts to one of the world's major religions and in less than a decade its spiritual leader is rebuking you in front of the entire world That's how big a loser JD Vance is apnews.com/article/pope...
[image or embed]
— Will Bunch ( @willbunch.bsky.social) February 11, 2025 at 8:21 AM
"I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church, and all men and women of goodwill, not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters," the Pope added. "With charity and clarity we are all called to live in solidarity and fraternity, to build bridges that bring us ever closer together, to avoid walls of ignominy, and to learn to give our lives as Jesus Christ gave his for the salvation of all."
Pope Francis is a longtime champion of migrant rights. The 88-year-old Argentinian criticized Trump's so-called "zero-tolerance" immigration policies, including family separation and construction of a wall along portions of the Mexican border, during the Republican's first term in office.
"Builders of walls, be they made of razor wire or bricks, will end up becoming prisoners of the walls they build," the Pope said in 2019.
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Biden's Faith and Support for Genocide in Gaza
As a self-proclaimed observant, practicing Catholic, you have not only failed to heed Pope Francis' figurative encyclical regarding Gaza but are shipping billions of dollars of weapons into the arsenal of the Israeli government.
Dec 31, 2023
We and many other organizations and peaceful protesters in our country have worked in vain to persuade President Joe Biden to use his influence to have the Israeli regime agree to a ceasefire that would allow hundreds of humanitarian aid trucks daily into the devastated graveyard that is now the Gaza Strip. Biden regularly begs Israel to let in more trucks, paid for by the U.S. At the same time the Biden administration exercises veto power on the U.N. Security Council blocking a cease-fire, truce, or negotiations toward a permanent two-state resolution. A cease-fire would at least allow aid to reach the besieged.
According to Professor Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, “[U]nless something changes, the world faces the prospect of almost a quarter of Gaza’s 2 million population—close to half a million human beings” can die within a year. (See, The Guardian, December 29, 2023).
We have appealed to Biden’s duty to apply vigorous diplomacy to this cascade of genocidal war crimes by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This means suspension of hostilities, and the immediate flow of critical food, water, medical, shelter, and other supplies for civilians, followed by serious negotiations toward a two-state solution. Instead, Antony Blinken, his secretary of state, behaves as a secretary of war shuttling between the U.S. and Israel.
We have appealed to Biden’s political sense and how he is losing the support of more Americans every day as the slaughters of children, women, the elderly and other innocents worsen.
None of these appeals has moved this co-belligerent in the White House. All that is left is to appeal to what he has said his practicing Catholicism means to him every day. The following letter addresses his conscience as a matter of his professed religious faith.
December 29, 2023
Honorable Joe Biden
President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
Re: Your Catholic faith. Aiding and abetting Israeli government genocide in Gaza including bombing the Holy Family Catholic Church and Convent. Abuse of power is a cardinal sin.
Dear Mr. President:
You describe yourself as a “practicing Catholic.” During an interview with The Jesuit Review on September 21, 2015, you emphatically asserted that all faiths have an “obligation to fight against abuse of power” as a cardinal sin worse than all others that should be arrested and defeated. You added that “every human being is entitled to be treated with dignity.”
In late October, Pope Francis decried the Israeli government’s post-October 7, 2023, attack on Gaza in a phone conversation with Israeli President Isaac Herzog: “It is forbidden to respond to terror with terror.” On December 17, 2023, the pope deplored as “terrorism” the bombing and killings by the Israeli government of two Catholic women, an elderly mother, and her grown daughter, and the wounding of seven others who had taken refuge in the Holy Family Catholic Church and Convent.
The Israeli government’s defense minister has dehumanized 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza as “human animals” and pledged to treat them, accordingly, denying them the dignity to which you insist each person is entitled according to your Catholic gospel.
You have acted unswervingly in support of the Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza, including a siege that according to the Israeli defense minister’s proclamation means “no electricity, no food, no fuel, no water.” Article II (c) of the Genocide Convention in 1949, born of the Holocaust, defines genocide as, “Deliberately inflicting on [a national, ethnical, racial, or religious] group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
To complement the physical destruction caused by the siege, the Israeli government has bombed and invaded Gaza, killing tens of thousands of civilians, and displaced virtually its entire population targeting hospitals, ambulances, journalists, water mains, houses, apartment buildings, schools, offices, marketplaces, United Nations marked schools, UNRWA personnel, places of worship, and crowded refugee camps, roads, generators and electric networks, and more.
This is genocide by any yardstick. Pope Francis has denounced the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza as “terrorism.” As a self-proclaimed observant, practicing Catholic, you have not only failed to heed Pope Francis’ figurative encyclical regarding Gaza but are shipping billions of dollars of weapons into the arsenal of the Israeli government to assist its Gaza terrorism, including attacking the Holy Family Catholic Church. In your many expressions of support for what Netanyahu is destroying in Gaza, you have not found any room to express condemnation of this Israeli government’s attack on this lone Catholic Church in Gaza.
You have made the U.S. government into a “co-belligerent” under international law and have given a greenlight “with powerful weaponry” to what Netanyahu is doing to Gaza, including enabling him to block most humanitarian aid from starving, sick, and mortally injured Palestinians, a majority of whom are women and children.
The Israeli government has no self-defense justification for the genocide. It targets Palestinian civilians throughout Gaza wherever they are gathered, fleeing, sheltering, starving, and dying.
Practicing Catholics are made of more holy and peaceful convictions.
King Henry VIII was excommunicated by Pope Paul III in 1538 for divorcing Catherine of Aragon, a far lesser sin by your standards than the United States’ and Israeli government’s continuing “abuse of power” in Gaza, i.e., terrorism, war crimes, and genocide, promoted by American weapons, intelligence, and repeated lone vetoes in the United Nations Security Council—a cardinal sins according to your own yardstick.
What do you think Pope Francis should communicate to you?
Sincerely,
Bruce Fein, Esq.
Ralph Nader, Esq.
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Outraged by the FBI's Catholic Memo? Targeting Muslims Laid the Groundwork
Had conservative politicians stood up against government overreach when American Muslims were its victims, they could have prevented the government from even thinking about writing a memo focused on the Catholic community.
Aug 20, 2023
In one of the few relatively benign moments of Dave Chappelle's last appearance on Saturday Night Live, the comedian made an interesting observation: The complaints that some white Americans have made about law enforcement in recent years are complaints that African Americans have made about law enforcement for decades.
"Man, we can't trust the government," Chappelle said in his faux southern accent. "[Black people] have been on that. Man, we should dismantle the FBI. Word to Martin Luther King, bro. We've been on that."
Writing the jokes out doesn't do justice to the delivery, but you get the idea.
The memory of Chappelle's riff came to me last week, when conservative pundits and lawmakers railed against the FBI over an internal memorandum that proposed a strategy to address the purported threat of "radical traditional Catholic ideology."
The FBI memo says that followers of this ideology, abbreviated as RTC, are characterized by a rejection of reforms made during Vatican II, a "disdain for popes elected since then, particularly Popes Francis and John Paul II," and "adherence to antisemitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBT, and white supremacist ideology."
If you replace every instance of "church" and "radical traditional Catholic" in the FBI memo with "mosque" and "radical Islamic terrorist," the memo would read like the typical way the government has thought about and addressed the American Muslim community over the past 20 years.
To mitigate the threat of "RTCs," the memo advises, the FBI should engage in something called "tripwire," "source development," and outreach to "traditional Catholic parishes," among other things. The memo also identified conservative Catholic political stances, such as opposition to abortion, as potential triggers for acts of terrorism in the run-up to the 2024 election.
When the FBI memo first went public earlier this year, it sparked outrage among Catholics who felt it was inappropriate or even unconstitutional for the government to target the Catholic community in this way.
Conservative politicians and media personalities also latched onto the issue, exaggerating the content of the memo and using it as a new political cudgel in their ongoing feud with the bureau over its investigations of Donald Trump.
In response to such backlash, the FBI withdrew the memo and insisted it was the work of only one local field office. But a new report last week showed that multiple offices contributed to the memo and sparked renewed outrage.
As a Muslim civil rights attorney who has seen the injustices that can occur when law enforcement starts treating faith communities as suspect, I understand the concerns that Catholic voices have raised about the FBI memo.
Although every law enforcement agency has a duty to prevent and investigate crimes, the government has no business planting informants in churches, enlisting priests to help spy on community members, or equating acts of conservative piety with signs of extremism.
Even though I sympathize with some of the concerns raised about the FBI memo, I also cannot help but wonder: Where was the outrage when the federal government used identical thinking and tactics to target the Muslim community?
Indeed, if you replace every instance of "church" and "radical traditional Catholic" in the FBI memo with "mosque" and "radical Islamic terrorist," the memo would read like the typical way the government has thought about and addressed the American Muslim community over the past 20 years.
From New York to Los Angeles and cities in-between, federal and local law enforcement have used spies to infiltrate and monitor mosques.
Federal Countering Violent Extremism programs were used to build ties between law enforcement and Muslim community organizations, who would then be used to monitor, counter, and report signs of extremism.
Law enforcement training materials at the local and federal level have used explicitly anti-Muslim tropes. And only God knows how many internal memos have been dedicated to equating Islamic practices like growing a beard or praying regularly at a mosque with signs of extremism.
Yet some of the same voices who enthusiastically supported such dragnet policies when they were directed at Muslim Americans are now outraged that the government merely drafted a single memo focused on Catholic Americans.
When we allow law enforcement agencies to infiltrate, spy upon, entrap, and otherwise target one faith community, we open the door for law enforcement to do the same to other faith communities down the road.
This is why consistency is so important when it comes to opposing government overreach.
When we allow law enforcement agencies to infiltrate, spy upon, entrap, and otherwise target one faith community, we open the door for law enforcement to do the same to other faith communities down the road.
Had conservative politicians stood up against government overreach when American Muslims were its victims, they could have prevented the government from even thinking about writing a memo focused on the Catholic community.
Now, a naysayer might argue the FBI has good reason to worry about Muslims in a post-9/11 world but no reason to worry about Catholics, so it's perfectly fine to focus on mosques.
But this unprincipled stance would miss the point: Our nation's stated values and the text of the Constitution should forbid the government from singling out, spying on, or otherwise undermining faith communities from within.
Furthermore, if we accept that targeting a faith community is acceptable when a few of its members supposedly pose a threat, the FBI memo claims that it is monitoring hate groups and extremists who identify as Catholic and pose an active threat of violence. Essentially Timothy McVeigh all over again.
Even if this is true, it would not justify targeting Catholic institutions at-large to address such threats.
Law enforcement must follow real leads and track down real criminals, not go on fishing expeditions in churches, mosques, or other houses of worship. The rest of us must consistently oppose anti-religious bigotry under the guise of national security, regardless of what community is targeted.
The Patriot Act, warrantless bulk surveillance, the unconstitutional federal terror watchlist, sending informants into houses of worship—these government activities have predominantly impacted the Muslim community, but they could potentially threaten every community.
That's why our civil rights organization, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, opposes any attempts by federal law enforcement to focus on the Catholic American community just as strongly as we oppose targeting of the Muslim American community.
We can only hope that every American embraces this principled stance before their faith community shows up in a government memo.
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Faith Leaders, Parents, and Public Education Advocates Sue Over First US Religious Charter School
"Governmental sanctioning of a religious charter school drives a stake in the heart of religious liberty and seeks to eviscerate the fundamental precept of the separation of church and state," said the head of a plaintiff group.
Jul 31, 2023
A nonprofit that supports public education and nine Oklahoma residents on Monday filed a lawsuit to stop the state from sponsoring and funding the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, the first religious charter school in the United States.
A legal challenge has been
brewing since the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board approved the online institution in a 3-2 vote last month. St. Isidore, a "collaborative effort between the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa" intended to provide "a quality Catholic education" to children statewide, is set to open for the 2024-25 academic year.
"Religious liberty allows us to worship according to our faith. But forcing Oklahomans to fund religious teachings with their tax dollars is not religious freedom. It is state-sponsored religion, which violates the Oklahoma Constitution and the Oklahoma Charter Schools Act," said Misty Bradley, chair of the Oklahoma Parent Legislative Action Committee (OKPLAC), in a statement.
"Governmental sanctioning of a religious charter school drives a stake in the heart of religious liberty and seeks to eviscerate the fundamental precept of the separation of church and state," added Bradley, whose group has joined faith leaders, parents, and public education advocates in challenging the Oklahoma board's recent approval of St. Isidore.
The plaintiffs are represented by the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU), Education Law Center, and Freedom From Religion Foundation, who are assisted by Oklahoma-based counsel Odom & Sparks PLLC and J. Douglas Mann.
As Daniel Mach and Heather L. Weaver, respectively the director and a senior staff attorney at the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, explained in a Monday blog post:
Oklahoma's public school system includes both brick-and-mortar and virtual charter schools. State statutory provisions and the state constitution require these schools and all other public schools to remain open to all students—regardless of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, religion, LGBTQ status, disability, or any other characteristic—and to teach a nonreligious curriculum. St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School will do neither...
In its application, St. Isidore asserts that it... will participate "in the evangelizing mission of the church." To that end, the school's application makes clear that it will discriminate in admissions and student discipline, as necessary to satisfy the Catholic Church's religious beliefs. This means that students could be denied admission or punished based on their religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or other failures to comply with Catholic doctrine. St. Isidore even refused to certify that it will not discriminate against students with disabilities if accommodating a student would violate Catholic beliefs. The school also plans to discriminate in employment.
"I am invested in secular public schools because I believe in the Oklahoma Constitution and a founding principle of our nation: Religious freedom can only be preserved if the state does not establish or support any religion," said plaintiff Leslie Briggs.
Briggs is the legal director of Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, and she and her wife have a child who will soon enter public schools. She added that "I also find state-sanctioned discrimination abhorrent and refuse to accept my tax dollars being used to promote discrimination against children and families that look like mine."
Other plaintiffs include a mother of two children on the autism spectrum, a parent of a public school student with disabilities, and a reverend who is also the great-grandson of a former Chilocco Indian Agricultural School resident.
Plaintiff Brenda Lené, founder and operator of the Facebook group "Oklahoma Education Needs/Donations" and parent of a child in public school, warned that "giving public tax dollars to a school like St. Isidore not only opens the door to discrimination, but it also takes even more funding from our secular public schools and teachers, which will have a disastrous effect on the already underfunded public education system and create more financial inequality."
St. Isidore is expected to cost taxpayers more than $26 million over its first five years of operation, according to The Oklahoman.
The newspaper noted conflicting comments from a representative for local Catholic leaders and the Republican state attorney general:
"News of a suit from AU comes as no surprise since they have indicated early in this process their intentions to litigate," said Brett Farley, a lobbyist representing the diocese and archdiocese. "We remain confident that the Oklahoma court will ultimately agree with the U.S. Supreme Court's opinion in favor of religious liberty."
The nation's high court recently ruled private schools could receive public funds from school voucher programs and government grants. Attorney General Gentner Drummond, disagreeing with his predecessor John O'Connor, argued these cases have "little precedential value" to charter school law and no legal history exists to prove charter schools are private.
Drummond had called out the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board after the June vote, declaring that "the approval of any publicly funded religious school is contrary to Oklahoma law and not in the best interest of taxpayers."
"It's extremely disappointing that board members violated their oath in order to fund religious schools with our tax dollars. In doing so, these members have exposed themselves and the State to potential legal action that could be costly," he said.
The Oklahoman reported that after a 3-1 vote last week, the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom will represent the board in the case, as Drummond has withdrawn his office's legal services for matters related to St. Isidore.
Though filed in state court—specifically, in the District Court of Oklahoma County—the case is expected to draw attention from across the country. It comes after the U.S. Supreme Court last month declined to hear a challenge to a federal appeals court ruling that charter schools receiving public funds, like traditional public schools, must abide by the national Constitution and law.
"A school that claims to be simultaneously public and religious would be a sea change for American democracy," AU president and CEO Rachel Laser said Monday. "It's hard to think of a clearer violation of the religious freedom of Oklahoma taxpayers and public school families than the state establishing a public school that is run as a religious school."
"We're witnessing a full-on assault on church-state separation and public education—and religious public charter schools are the next frontier," Laser stressed. "America needs a national recommitment to church-state separation."
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Sinead O’Connor’s Life and Legacy of Protest
Once an abused child, she stood up against the oppression of others, from children abused by Catholic priests to Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.
Jul 28, 2023
Tragically, Sinead O’Connor is dead at 56. Many of the obituaries of Irish protest singer have been oddly thin, and have ignored key moments in her life. One was her contretemps with Israeli extremist Itamar Ben-Gvir, now the country’s Minister of National Security. She later became fiercely critical of the Israeli treatment of Palestinians. Another was her conversion to Islam in 2018.
O’Connor maintained to Dr. Phil that she was an abused child, the victim of her mother, Johanna O’Grady: “She ran a torture chamber. My earliest memory, she’s telling me I shouldn’t have been born. She didn’t want me… She was a person who took delight, would smile in hurting you.”
She ran away from home when she was 13. She was later caught shoplifting and had to spend eight months in a home for fallen women, which she remembered as a horrific experience. When she was 18 her mother died in a car accident, leaving Sinead forever unable to work through that difficult relationship, which haunted her.
Dylan inspired her to take up music. She came to prominence with her 1987 punk-rock hit in the UK, “Mandinka.”
She was becoming a pop star, but it wasn’t what she wanted. She said she was a punk, a protest singer.
Her breakout song was a cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares to U” in 1990, a song about the depth of loss, in which she genuinely wept at the end of the video. Tom Eames explains that it stayed at the top of the US charts for four weeks in 1990.
She was becoming a pop star, but it wasn’t what she wanted. She said she was a punk, a protest singer. She insisted on shocking her fans. Issy Ronald explains that as an abused child herself, she was sensitive to the stories in the back pages of the Irish newspapers on victims of priest child abuse, and grew more and more furious about it. When she was invited to perform on Saturday Night Live in 1992, she sang Bob Marley’s “War” a capella, and ended by tearing up a photograph of Pope John Paul, whom she blamed for having declined to confront the pedophilia crisis in the Church. She shouted “Fight the real enemy!”
I remember watching that performance and wondering what in the world was going on. I didn’t become aware of the priest pedophilia issue until much later.
Ironically, Ms. O’Connor wrote in her memoir, Rememberings, that she probably became a musician because, as a woman, she was barred from becoming a priest. Her spiritual yearning, visible throughout her life, was not squelched by the patriarchy and abuse of major religious institutions. She continued to seek the transcendent truth, but outside such frameworks.
She battled her own demons, including bipolar disorder, and had difficulty maintaining lasting relationships. She was a deeply lonely person who kept seeking intimacy and failing to find it. She had four failed marriages, one lasting just a week.
As someone who felt oppressed herself, she sympathized with both the Jews and the Palestinians. Daniel Hilton at Middle East Eye explains that she agreed to do a concert in Jerusalem in 1997 for a group of Israeli and Palestinian women who were campaigning for Jerusalem to be the shared capital of Israel and Palestine. This was when the Oslo Peace Accords had created an expectation that there would be a Palestinian state, before far right Likud politician Binyamin Netanyahu derailed the agreement.
An Israeli extremist group, the Ideological Front, made death threats against Ms. O’Connor, who cancelled the concert. One of the activists threatening to kill her was Itamar Ben-Gvir, whom Netanyahu made minister of national security this winter. Ben-Gvir boasted, “Due to us she is not arriving.” He added, “We are calling the pressure we put on her… a success,” according to AP at the time. As always, Ben-Gvir and his fellow violent extremists were the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. They delivered the death threat to the British embassy. Ms. O’Connor was Irish.
She then wrote an open letter to Ben-Gvir, her would-be murderer. She said, “God does not reward those who bring terror to children of the world, So you have succeeded in nothing but your soul’s failure.”
Ms. O’Connor said, “I cannot put in danger the lives of my two children, my musicians, and my technicians, so I have decided to cancel.”
She then wrote an open letter to Ben-Gvir, her would-be murderer. She said, “God does not reward those who bring terror to children of the world, So you have succeeded in nothing but your soul’s failure.”
Well, God may not reward them, but Netanyahu will put them in his cabinet.
She became increasingly concerned about the plight of the Palestinians under Israeli military rule and in 2014 she declined to play in Israel. She told an Irish music magazine, “Let’s just say that, on a human level, nobody with any sanity, including myself, would have anything but sympathy for the Palestinian plight. There’s not a sane person on earth who in any way sanctions what the f*** the Israeli authorities are doing.”
In 2018 she announced that she had converted to Islam, tweeting, “This is to announce that I am proud to have become a Muslim. This is the natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian‘s journey. All scripture study leads to Islam. Which makes all other scriptures redundant.”
She also praised the beauty of the Qur’an, saying, “Listen to Qur’an recitation… it goes straight to your soul… I find it powerful to hear. What I love is to listen to the beautiful recitations in Arabic and then hear the spoken English. The Arabic recitation has to be listened to.”
I concur, and remember the warm feelings I got from studying the Qur’an in Arabic in Cairo back in 1975.
Khaled Baydoun noted that few obituaries featured pictures of O’Connor, who privately took the name Shuhada Sadaqat, in hijab:
On the other hand, she was an LGBTQ+ ally, and once wore a rainbow hijab. And to be fair, she didn’t always wear a Muslim veil after her conversion. She wrote in her memoir that it wasn’t really possible for her to perform her music in one.
I hope she wrote more about what Islam meant to her in private diaries and correspondence, which will come to light. As with everything in her life, her take on it will have been brave, original, and full of deep ethical insight.
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Vatican Rejects 'Doctrine of Discovery', Used to Justify Colonial Conquest and Land Theft
One Native American group hopes the historic move "is more than mere words, but rather is the beginning of a full acknowledgment of the history of oppression and a full accounting of the legacies of colonialism."
Mar 31, 2023
In a historic shift long sought by Indigenous-led activists, the Holy See on Thursday formally repudiated the doctrine of discovery, a dubious legal theory born from a series of 15th-century papal decrees used by colonizers including the United States to legally justify the genocidal conquest of non-Christian peoples and their land.
In a joint statement, the Vatican's departments of culture and education declared that "the church acknowledges that these papal bulls did not adequately reflect the equal dignity and rights of Indigenous peoples" and "therefore repudiates those concepts that fail to recognize the inherent human rights of Indigenous peoples, including what has become known as the legal and political 'doctrine of discovery.'"
"The church is also aware that the contents of these documents were manipulated for political purposes by competing colonial powers in order to justify immoral acts against Indigenous peoples that were carried out, at times, without opposition from ecclesiastical authorities," the statement added. "It is only just to recognize these errors, acknowledge the terrible effects of the assimilation policies and the pain experienced by Indigenous peoples, and ask for pardon."
Indigenous leaders—who for decades demanded the Vatican rescind the discovery doctrine—welcomed the move, while expressing hope that it brings real change.
"On the surface it sounds good, it looks good... but there has to be a fundamental change in attitudes, behavior, laws, and policies from that statement," Ernie Daniels, the former chief of Long Plain First Nation in Manitoba, Canada, told CBC Thursday.
"There's still a mentality out there—they want to assimilate, decimate, terminate, eradicate Indigenous people," added Daniels, who was part of a delegation that met with Pope Francis last year in Rome and Canada.
The pontiff—who is currently hospitalized with a respiratory infection—apologized last July in Alberta for the church's human rights crimes against First Nations and asked for forgiveness "for the wrong done by so many Christians to the Indigenous peoples."
Ghislain Picard, an Innu leader and the regional chief of the Assembly of First Nations for Quebec and Labrador, told CBC that the Vatican's move is mostly symbolic.
"The Vatican seems to be washing its hands of its role in the whole colonization of our lands, and to me it would be so simple to just accept the fact that they played a role," he said. "Reconciliation is a buzzword. But how it impacts current policy is really what's at stake here."
Discovery doctrine is rooted in a trio of papal decrees issued in the second half of the 15th century authorizing the Portuguese and Spanish monarchies to conquer land and enslave people in Africa and the Americas if they were non-Christians and dividing the Americas between the two burgeoning empires.
Nullified by the Vatican in the 16th century, the papal decrees nevertheless underpinned centuries of colonial conquest by Europeans and Euro-Americans.
In 1823, United States Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in Johnson v. M'Intosh that Indigenous people could not sell land to whites because Indians' "power to dispose of the soil at their own will to whomsoever they pleased was denied by the original fundamental principle that discovery gave exclusive title to those who made it."
The precedent set by Johnson was cited as recently as 2005, when then-Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg notoriously cited doctrine of discovery in Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation, an opinion decried by many Native Americans.
In a Thursday interview on Indian Country Today's newscast, Arizona State University law professor Robert Miller, who is Eastern Shawnee, said that "what the church did is an important worldwide educational moment, but it doesn't change the law in any country. It doesn't change titles to land anywhere."
"It's gonna take far more than just the pope repudiating these 600-year-old papal bulls to make real changes for Indigenous peoples," he added.
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The Rome Conference on Nonviolence: A Turning Point in History
It was a joy for me to join eighty people from around the world meeting in Rome from April 11th to the 14th at the "Nonviolence and Just Peace Conference: Contributing to the Catholic Understanding of and Commitment to Nonviolence." Members of the three day event co-hosted by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the International Catholic Peace Movement Organization, Pax Christi, strongly called on Pope Francis "to share with the world an encyclical on nonviolence and Just Peace," and on the Church to "no longer use or teach 'just war theory' and to continue advocating "for the
Apr 20, 2016
It was a joy for me to join eighty people from around the world meeting in Rome from April 11th to the 14th at the "Nonviolence and Just Peace Conference: Contributing to the Catholic Understanding of and Commitment to Nonviolence." Members of the three day event co-hosted by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the International Catholic Peace Movement Organization, Pax Christi, strongly called on Pope Francis "to share with the world an encyclical on nonviolence and Just Peace," and on the Church to "no longer use or teach 'just war theory' and to continue advocating "for the abolition of war and nuclear weapons."
I believe the misguided age of "blessing wars, militarism and killing" must end.
The statement of appeal to the Pope said clearly: "We believe there is no 'just war.' Too often the 'just war theory' has been used to endorse rather than prevent or limit war. Suggesting that a 'just war' is possible also undermines the moral imperative to develop tools and capacities for nonviolent transformation of conflict."
The gathering in Rome consisted of lay people, theologians, members of religious congregations, and priests and bishops from Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania. In his opening address, Cardinal Turkson, head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, read a welcoming statement from Pope Francis.
The final statement, released at the end of the conference, entitled "An Appeal to the Catholic Church to re-commit to the Centrality of Gospel Nonviolence," can be read at the Pax Christi International website.
This was indeed a historic gathering and the participants made a brave and history-making call to Pope Francis and the Church.
I believe we are at an important and hopeful turning point in human history, from violence to nonviolence, war to peace.
We called upon Pope Francis to give strong spiritual leadership to the world's Christians and reject war for peace and nonviolence. We are all conscious of the growing militarization of our societies and countries and the myth being perpetrated that militarism, nuclear weapons and war are acceptable.
I hope that Pope Francis will call upon Catholics not to join the military and remind them that killing cannot be with Christ. I believe the misguided age of "blessing wars, militarism and killing" must end. The responsibility lies with Pope Francis and all religious/spiritual leaders to be true shepherds of peace, nonviolence and nonkilling, to help us follow the command of Jesus to love our enemies and not kill each other.
I also hope also that Pope Francis will unambiguously proclaim that violence is always wrong, that violence is not the way of Jesus, that Catholics cannot take up arms to kill people, and that we are called to become a true peace church.
The Appeal is now in the hands of Pope Francis. We can all now pray, fast and work for a new encyclical on nonviolence and nonkilling. We hope that Pope Francis will continue to show courage, be brave and bold, and be a true Prophet, a loving Shepherd and a bright light in these dark days for the human family. Together, we can herald the coming of a more nonviolent world.
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