VATICAN CITY (AP) \u2014 The Vatican\u2019s charity voiced outrage Monday at what it called the \u201creckless\u201d and \u201cunhuman\u201d U.S. plans to gut USAID, with Pope Francis\u2019 point-man on development aid insisting that the Trump administration remember Christian principles about caring for others as it begins governing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cardinal Michael Czerny, a Czech-born Canadian Jesuit<\/a>, is one of the cardinals most closely associated with Francis\u2019 pontificate and heads the Vatican office responsible for migrants, the environment, the church\u2019s Caritas Internationalis charity and development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Caritas on Monday warned that millions of people will die as a result of the \u201cruthless\u201d U.S. decision to \u201crecklessly\u201d stop USAID funding, and hundreds of millions more will be condemned to \u201cdehumanizing poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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, accounting for around 40% of the global aid budget. The Trump administration and billionaire ally Elon Musk<\/a> have targeted USAID hardest so far in their challenge of the federal government: A sweeping funding freeze has shut down most of USAID\u2019s programs worldwide, though a federal judge on Friday put a temporary halt<\/a> to plans to pull thousands of agency staffers off the job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an interview with The Associated Press, Czerny said every incoming government has the right to review its foreign aid budget, and even to reform an agency like USAID. But he said it\u2019s another thing to dismantle an agency after it has made funding commitments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere are programs underway and expectations and we might even say commitments, and to break commitments is a serious thing,\u201d Czerny said Sunday. \u201cSo 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of USAID\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a statement, Caritas urged governments to urgently call on the U.S. administration to reverse course. \u201cStopping USAID will jeopardize essential services for hundreds of millions of people, undermine decades of progress in humanitarian and development assistance, destabilize regions that rely on this critical support, and condemn millions to dehumanizing poverty or even death,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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\u2019s income, Czerny noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 \u201cwoke\u201d programs<\/a> in its USAID cuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf the government thinks that its programs have been distorted by ideology, well, then they should reform the programs,\u201d Czerny said. \u201cMany people would say that shutting down is not the best way to reform them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another area of concern for the Vatican and Catholic hierarchy in the U.S. is the Trump administration\u2019s crackdown on undocumented migrants<\/a>. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said last week that more than 8,000 people had been arrested in immigration enforcement actions since Trump\u2019s Jan. 20 inauguration. Some are being held in federal prisons<\/a> while others are being held at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA crackdown is a terrible way to administer affairs and much less to administer justice,\u201d said Czerny, whose own family immigrated to Canada as refugees after World War II. \u201cAnd so I\u2019m very sorry that many people are being hurt and indeed terrorized by the measures.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAll we can hope for is that the people, God\u2019s people and the people of goodwill, will help and protect those vulnerable people who are suddenly made much more vulnerable,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The U.S. conference of Catholic bishops put out an unusually critical statement after President Donald Trump\u2019s initial executive orders, saying those \u201cfocused on the treatment of immigrants and refugees, foreign aid, expansion of the death penalty, and the environment, are deeply troubling and will have negative consequences, many of which will harm the most vulnerable among us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n