USCCB Sues Trump Administration Over NGO Funding

By DR. CHRISTOPHER MANION

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has sued the federal government to restore federal taxpayer funding of the works performed by the conference’s secular agencies that participate in the government’s refugee settlement programs.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Feb. 18, urges the government “to uphold its legal and moral obligations to refugees and to restore the necessary funding to ensure that faith-based and community organizations can continue this vital work that reflects our nation’s values of compassion, justice, and hospitality.”

Among the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that resettle millions of aliens crossing the border under the Obama and Biden administrations, Catholic Charities, USA receives the greatest share of federal funding. Obama’s funding was reduced by half during the first Trump administration, with a successful focus on restricting illegal immigration and securing the border. Upon assuming office in 2021, Joe Biden trebled that amount, and the funding issue has been a major bone of contention in the ongoing furor surrounding the bishops’ participation in the government’s immigration programs.

Our bishops had complained vigorously about Trump during his first term, but maintained an almost universal silence during Biden’s years, despite his radical support of abortion and the entire “gender agenda” at home and abroad. They had never sued the Biden administration about anything, nor did the Ordinaries of Wilmington and Washington ever apply Canon 915 regarding his scandals.

But with Trump’s inauguration, they came to life with remarkable vigor.

“For decades, the U.S. government has chosen to admit refugees and outsourced its statutory responsibility to provide those refugees with resettlement assistance to non-profit organizations like USCCB,” the lawsuit states, “[b]ut now, after refugees have arrived and been placed in USCCB’s care, the government is attempting to pull the rug out from under USCCB’s programs by halting funding.”

The USCCB complains that some $25 million taxpayer dollars are already overdue, and that “these numbers will continue to rise by millions of dollars every week that the Refugee Funding Suspension remains in effect.”

“[The USCCB] faces irreparable damage to its longstanding refugee resettlement programs and its reputation and relationship with its subrecipients and the refugee populations it serves,” the lawsuit states. “USCCB’s inability to reimburse its partner organizations, in turn, has required some of those organizations to lay off staff and may require them to stop providing aid for housing, food, and resettlement to support refugees.”

It’s Charity — Voluntary Or Not

This is not the first time that bishops have sued the federal government. After the pandemic exploded five years ago this month, the government made various funds available to some entities suffering losses due to the lockdowns. Several Catholic dioceses at the time sued the Small Business Administration (SBA) for federal funding to keep their staffs on board, even though in many cases the churches, offices, and schools where they worked were closed to the public. When the final accounting of these disbursements nationwide was completed, the Catholic Church and its entities were the single highest recipient, a curious discovery, since in many dioceses the faithful had been locked out of the Mass and other sacraments for months.

Nonetheless, the various entities of the Catholic Church received the largest total amount paid under the SBA’s programs.

The lawsuit filed on February 18 opens with this statement:

“For nearly 80 years, the Catholic Church has been caring for refugees within the United States. Refugees face significant challenges upon entering the country, including locating housing, learning English, and finding employment.”

This is a misstatement. We recall that, when Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., recounted how his great-great grandfather landed in Boston in 1848, he was welcomed by the Democrat Party, he failed to mention John Bernard Fitzpatrick, bishop of Boston at the time. The bishop not only helped Irish families as they arrived in America but also sent thousands of dollars from diocesan funds and special collections to Archbishop William Crolly in Ireland to help those still suffering under the British boot.

So, what the lawsuit refers to as “caring for refugees” is the care provided by the bishops’ taxpayer-funded agencies that have resettled migrants since the end of the Second World War. Truly charitable works — funded by voluntary donations amidst a flourishing Church bursting with new parishes, schools, and yes, charities — are a thing of the past.

Today, our bishops seldom distinguish between truly charitable works like that of Bishop Fitzpatrick, on the one hand, and the work of their government-funded agencies, which by law must be secular, with no hint of any religious character, on the other.

Their failure — indeed, their refusal — to admit this distinction is reflected in a statement on its refugee programs released by the conference shortly after President Trump took office in January. “Faithful to the teaching of Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church has a long history of serving refugees. In 1980, the bishops of the United States began partnering with the federal government to carry out this service when Congress created the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP).”

Curious, isn’t it? In the bishops’ programs funded by billions of taxpayer funding over the years, their NGOs have been prevented by law even to mention the teaching of Jesus Christ.

But in 1980, Joseph Bernardin, soon to become the Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago, took charge of the conference’s Department of Justice, Peace, and Human Development and inaugurated its programs featuring “social justice” — a theme that harmonized with the secular programs of the welfare state — and attenuated the Church’s magisterial moral teaching on family, marriage, and children that has been left by the side of the road ever since.

And they appear to be quite comfortable with that fact.

A New Bishops’ Lenten Appeal?

To prepare this 35-page legal brief, the bishops engaged Gibson and Dunn, one of Washington’s most prestigious law firms whose work, according to its webpage, features “complex litigation at all levels.” Eighteen lawyers participated in writing the brief, and the fact that Gibson-Dunn is also one of the most expensive D.C. litigation specialists is reflected in two of the six “requests” made of the court at the end of the document:

(4) “Enjoin — temporarily, preliminarily, and permanently — Defendants to reimburse USCCB for all expenses it has incurred or will incur pursuant to the terms of its cooperative agreements;

(5) Award Plaintiff’s counsel reasonable attorneys’ fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act, and any other applicable statute or regulation.”

“It’s not about the money,” our beloved shepherds repeat in their familiar litany, but this case will cost them millions of dollars — and they can’t use government funds to pay it.

The same principle applies to their hundreds of payouts in lawsuits brought by thousands of plaintiffs in the endless sex-abuse and coverup scandals over the years: The amount paid to the bishops’ own lawyers and support teams run up to several billion dollars.

“Where are we going to get the money,” as Representative Robert Fleming Rich, a Pennsylvania Republican would ask whenever FDR wanted a new spending program.

Where indeed?

When Texas Representatives asked about CCUSA’s spending at the border 15 months ago, New York Cardinal Dolan called them “bigots.”

That won’t work this time. Like it or not, with this case the USCCB has opened the door to “discovery,” which will allow the Justice Department to “follow the money” whether Cardinal Dolan likes it or not.

Well, they asked for it. Stay tuned.

(Dr. Manion’s new book, Charity for Sale: Has The American Church Become ‘Just Another NGO’? is now available on pre-order from Catholics For Catholics. Order online at https://cforc.com/product/charityforsale/)