Trump admin cancels $11M Catholic Charities contract amid feud with Pope
The Trump administration has reportedly canceled an $11 million contract with the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami, which offers shelter and care to migrant children entering the United States alone.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has paid Catholic Charities for numerous years to house immigrant children entering the U.S. without adult supervision. The federal government contacted the charity about the cancellation in late March, according to The Miami Herald.
The abrupt severing of the White House's long-term support to the nonprofit comes amid an ongoing feud between President Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV. Responding to Leo’s repeated criticism of the Iran war, Trump bashed the pope on Sunday in a social media post in which he called him “weak” on crime and “terrible” for foreign policy, urging him to “get his act together as Pope.”
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-admin-cancels-catholic-charities-contract-miami-pope-leo-feud-11837718Open linkView original on lemmy.world
Tax them, Donald! That’ll teach them a lesson! In fact, tax all religions so the rest of them know not to challenge you!
Right? I see no downsides to this.
I mean, killing a charity that provides care for unaccompanied migrant children without providing the care as a public service sounds like a downside to me.
The Catholic Church can sell a painting to keep that open.
That's fair
They don’t even need to do that, does anyone actually know how much gold they have? Not to mention precious stones and the vast number of antiquities, they literally have god tier money
Hell they could probably make a pretty penny copying some of the books in the Vatican library and selling nice versions to universities and libraries. I'm talking about the books they're paranoid to even look at least the velum and paper disintegrate from age.
Well, other than the fact that the president isn’t supposed to control taxes and doing this further slides us down into autocracy…
I can see him starting his own religion instead, once he realizes how much merch he can sell.
The MAGA Mega Church
Think of prayers asked and answered as an exchange of goods. Now tariff them.
This is how I imagine Netanyahu talks to Trump to get him to do his biddings
Add "Petty Bitch" to the list of the Orange Child Rapist titles
He's had the Petty Bitch title for most of his life, though.
It's just not enough for him to rape children anymore. When Donald Trump rapes a child, he only hurts that one child. By taking millions from a charity that helps children, Donald Trump has found one more way to ruin many children's lives all at once.
Trump seems like a person who heard that old meme about "How many children could you defeat?" and he ran with it.
Stopping food programs for children. Bombing elementary schools. Raping children. Caging children and separating them from their families. Deporting children despite their being US Citizens.
Trump is working from every angle to harm as many children as possible.
I don't think it's actually about children. I think it just happens that children are the most vulnerable demographic so it feels extra good to permanently damage them with impunity.
As with everything trump, the cruelty is the point.
Trump's been a notorious petty bitch since the 1970s.
"Add"!?
It was already there from the start
🌍🧑🚀🔫🧑🚀
I just want to say that I love that the “always has been” meme can be expressed in 4 emoji’s.
None of this behavior is surprising. He has always been this way. I'm tired of people who should know, not realizing this. Trump has always been this way, and he should have been gone when he made fun of the disabled veteran all those years ago.
His pettiness has allowed him to achieve amazing things. He used it to fuel his ambitions to replace the Catholic Church.
Now he is the one offering sanctuary and relief to countless pedophiles worldwide.
Trump eventually betrays everyone who trusts him. Including his own family.
what a petty little bitch
A shame that a whole country wants their intentions to be decided by a narcissist.
I'm curious if there's historical record of anyone or especially a leader being as petty as this short fingered vulgarian.
I'd like to think anywhere before say 1900s they'd have dealt with such an issue in a way relevant to the times. But we have stories of Nero and Caligula.....is Trump going to join their ranks in history? I do hope so, but as a footnote, the worst thing for him is to be forgotten when he's done.
At this point, beyond all political crap, the proper stand is to just ignore the orange infant. I thought otherwise before, how to ignore a driving force in the world? Well if every other country stops acknowledging him, he'll probably have a stroke or something. Seriously let's all make an ignore Trump day/month and everyone including countries just don't acknowledge he's there. At his age that may least overcome one issue. Plus the rage posts will be great for the books, history and psychology.
Seriously who lets someone like that get into power? He's a petulant child and should be treated as such but somehow he's been treated with kid gloves cause he's rich.
I second that idea. Lets make June Ignore the Orange Shit-stain month since his birthday is in June. Maybe he'll stroke-out out of pure rage.
He wouldn't notice or care. Ignoring Trump is how he got elected twice.
The "ignore" tactic might work on an anonymous internet troll, it's impossible for the president of the US. Even if he acts like an internet troll.
Do you think we can trick him into taxing churches
Him in a vacuum? Yes, probably.
However, it's the handlers and enablers Wormtonguing him behind the scenes that make it difficult.
Ahhhhhh! You could've chosen any combination of words but you had to use tonguing and behind.
Probably that too tbh
Call it a tariff instead and it's got legs.
I really want the pope to excommunicate Vance over all of this. That would be some excellent television.
Dear Internet Jesus, I don’t usually ask for things for myself, but . . .
That would be funny to see Biden going into a church and Vance being stopped outside.
Maybe he'll tax churches finally?
He's actually petty enough to try. Lmao that would be fucking awesome
I kind of would like to see the Scientologists take him on. That would be interesting.
This might just be me but I don't think scientology wants a spotlight on them. No matter what you think of Christianity and the awful people who use it to shield themselves. I feel as if scientology has far darker people behind it.
Oh yeah it would be interesting. Maybe they could destroy each other.
That's like the best possible outcome and would justify having to put up with all of MAGA's shit.
He'd be killed by the evangelicals pretty quickly though.
That idiot would probably try to tariff them.
Frankly fuck church's they should pay taxes. Fucking shits. Fuck religion
I thought the Antichrist was supposed to be cool and suave, not this fucking thing.
People unironically believe Trump is cool and suave.
It’s true. Somehow. Well, we pretty much know how.
Context is important. He's a charlatan, cool and suave to people who are easily manipulated. Which is supposed to be the atheists, but it turns out, believing in made up shit your whole life and ignoring science makes you way easier to manipulate than being an atheist.
How does he think this is going to punish the Catholic Church? The man is a complete moron.
Please, can I have just one day without some shit from that orange stain? Just one fucking day!
Not until someone puts a bullet down his eye socket.
And even then....
"Support me politically, or I will do stuff that will hurt the kids living in my own country" was Putin's thing back in 2012.
This regime brought to you by the "Culture Of Life (TM)."
Gotta give it to them for finding the absolute perfect target here.
It's like rolling a Yahtzee for them.
Imagine normalising having a "Feud with the Pope". Mental.
Every cult needs a religious leader, he is just eliminating the fake ones, like ... checks notes ... the Pope.
This guy is such a loser. Don’t ever forgive the losers who voted for this because they’re irredeemable trash
you realized the voters, are dumber than he is. and he called them suckers and losers.
I think that he meant the suckers and losers are those "boots on the ground" people.
This is stupid because Catholic Charities isn't even part of the Catholic Church-- it's a USA-based charity organization that's happens to be Catholic. And while they have developed many associations with the Catholic Church both here and around the world, that's all they are: associations. The Church doesn't run the charity. It's an independent organization.
It's stupid in a LOT of ways. But yes, that's one important one.
well, sure. it's not even against Catholic Charities in general, but a specific attack against Catholic Charities in Miami - a huge voting district for him where, in the 2024 election, Trump brought in 55.2% of the county votes, while Kamala Harris logged 43.71%, an abysmal showing compared to 2016.
Trump is DEFUNDING the Church AFTER threatening the POPE AFTER calling Jesus just a Doctor? What a GREAT FANTASTIC CHRISTIAN!
-Republicans!
Most Christians hate Catholics. They don't even consider them Christian which blows my mind.
While I don't know about Christians in other countries of the world, in the US this is mostly true. I heard all the time growing up in the Midwest that Catholics weren't Christians.
If I recall my catechism, by definition Catholicism is one of the bread of Christianism. Catholics tends to be much less extreme (than evangelicals) and don’t take the bible literally or something like that. They prey equally on children it seems so there are shared grounds.
Same. It's wild considering Catholics are half of the original church
Finally some traditional Christianty!
Who in this day and age feuds with the dang pope? Are we going to have pope wars again? I hope so.
Is there oil under Vatican City?
Maybe some holy scented oils.
Decaying Saint scent
Maybe children
vatican still has the antimatter bombs.
Does this mean the Catholic and Cuban votes will finally turn on him?
I certainly plan to bring this up to my highly catholic family members and see where their loyalty truly lies.
Thankfully my highly Catholic parents are both staunchly anti-Trump. They still have awful views on lots of other things though.
Godspeed. If you think of replying to this I'm genuinely interested.
I'll put 5 on "yeah I don't know what he's doing" "I don't agree with everything he does" "but look at all the good he's doing"
If we could channel their cognitive dissonance to turn turbines, we'd solve the energy crisis.
They're too busy paying foreign companies not to https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/23/trump-administration-wind-project-plan
When a government official loses and arbitrary and capricious action lawsuit, it shouldn't just reverse the policy, it should trigger an automatic removal review.
Wait wait he's cooking.
Meth?
Never interrupt your opponent when they're making a mistake
Oh just die already
For the current Republican Party, making race a topic of division is probably useful as a wedge issue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_issue
The Republican Party would probably rather have people divided over race. The Democratic Party over wealth.
But a Catholic-Protestant split would probably work pretty well for the Democratic Party as a wedge issue too, given that the current Republican Party is the social conservative party.
So, I think that Trump starting fights with the Catholic Church is probably a bad idea from the standpoint of the Republican Party, but if I were the Democratic Party, I'd probably be watching this with interest.
But Democrats are probably more likely to be pro-Choice, and the American Catholic Church has made the abortion issue a litmus test for support. Even with all of Vance's bloviating, I haven't seen any US Bishop say they would deny him communion, like they threatened to do to Biden.
Really, the Catholic Church has brought this onto itself. They openly supported the candidates that are now deporting and torturing it's most vulnerable parishioners, all to make sure they could punish women who make choices the Church didn't like.
YMMV. Plenty of Catholic Democrats have campaigned as Pro-Choice. The odd secular Ayn Rand loving Republican always finds a way to be Pro-Life. Rank and file Catholics routinely advocate for abortion rights, breaking 60/40 in favor as of just last year. Abortion prohibition hasn't been a winning issue with Catholics in my lifetime.
Totally ahistorical. Catholics (in America) are practically synonymous with liberalism going back to the 1930s. They've been in the tank for the Democratic Party since Kennedy.
If anyone has shifted over the last few decades, it's Republicans who have become more Catholic, not Catholics who have become more Republican. TradCath influencing and political leanings come from historically Protestant regions that are seeing the local evangelical churches dry up from lack of attendance or go bankrupt due to corrupt and incompetent leadership. Increasingly, the Catholic Church is the last church left standing in Rust Belt and Sun Belt states that have seen poverty wipe out the traditional middle class religious centers.
I'm speaking less about the Catholics in the pews and more about their Bishops. I've heard plenty of Catholic homiles in my time, and abortion seems to be the single issue they like to preach on with the most definition. Yes, many Catholic politicians do end up voting for pro-Choice legislation, but they hear about it from their bishops, very publicly.
There is a whole Wikipedia page on politicians who have been denied communion over pro-abortion stances, the vast majority of whom were in the US. No other issue generates the same immediate response to effectively ostrasize a politician from their faith over a vote of conscience. (And it is mostly an American phenomenon, with a few exceptions.)
The Bishop of Rome seems broadly critical of the entire US political establishment.
Recent popes have presided over Masses at which pro-abortion rights politicians have been given communion on many occasions.
So this does not seem to be a universal doctrine, just a habit among certain priests and bishops looking to make a stir.
On January 21, 2021, one day after his inauguration as president, Biden received communion from the hands of the archbishop of Washington, DC, Cardinal Wilton Daniel Gregory. The event was condemned by conservative activist Austin Ruse, in Crisis magazine. In October of the same year, Biden stated that during a meeting with pope Francis, "We just talked about the fact he was happy that I was a good Catholic and I should keep receiving Communion".
You are right on all counts, but the problem is that "a few bishops looking to make a stir" in the US quite possibly was the difference between Trump winning and losing those two elections he won.
(Well, not really, misogyny was the reason. But if Catholics hadn't come out in droves for Trump, maybe enough votes in enough of the correct zip codes would have flipped to have made a difference).
searches
It looks like there's some commentary out there on this already:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/04/14/donald-trump-attack-pope-leo-2026-midterms/89606369007/
I’ve literally never celebrated a death. Any loss of life should be considered a tragedy IMO, even if that tragedy brings with it relief. Even people we’ve considered evil in the past were deeply damaged and unfortunate. They were innocent at one time, until the world corrupted them. That’s who I mourn for.
I’m going to make an exception for this man and his cronies. I promise to make it my own annual holiday. Take the day off work, go out with friends and talk about how batshit the situation was, read aloud his worst hits, go out to dinner and toast to his demise, play this David Cross bit which I hope to have memorized someday.
I hope to start this tradition as soon as possible.
Might as well just get rid of the first amendment at this point.
Press: Attacked Assembly: You get arrested Speech: you get arrested Religion: They take money away Petition: let's see how they attack that one.
You're super late to the party. 1A has been a running joke in legal circles since checks notes the Alien and Sedition Acts.
It's always been a paper promise. Even when the state isn't explicitly cracking down on anti-government speech and opposition groups, they're constantly surveilling and censoring it. Without a meaningful political coalition surrounding the speaker, cops always find an excuse to arrest you for something. And if you can't lock someone up, well... don't look to hard into who shot MLK.
So I'm all for the Catholic church not getting tax payers money. But let's be real 11 million to the Catholic church is like me accidentally losing 20 bucks.
You realize the church isn’t getting the money, the church is using the money
You’re not hurting the church when you no longer let them use your money to help care for the needy, you’re only hurting those needy
Don’t let your hatred of organized religion distract who this hurts
Although I agree with you there are some fundamental issues here.
First: the Catholic Church does not require taxpayer funding to perform charitable or humanitarian work. When it participates in federal refugee resettlement, it is operating as a contracted service provider, not a financially dependent institution. The dependency narrative is therefore misleading.
Second: embedding a religious organization inside state-funded humanitarian logistics creates an inherent conflict of roles. The government is outsourcing policy execution; the Church is executing civic functions under spiritual identity. That overlap guarantees recurring tension over accountability, neutrality, and influence.
Third: policy reversals under the Trump administration altered refugee intake levels and associated funding flows. Whether one interprets that as governance reform or political disruption, the result is the same: humanitarian delivery systems become unstable when they are tightly coupled to shifting political priorities.
Fourth: the moral inconsistency runs in both directions. It is problematic to weaponize funding decisions as leverage against service providers. It is equally problematic to design humanitarian systems that depend on politically contingent funding streams in the first place.
He's gonna lose this on first amendment grounds
Three years from now after the charity goes under and no longer exists. But don't worry, a judge will write a mean sentence about trump.
Yeah the current court system is a bit of a joke. The fact they still aren't issuing injunctions is just piss. People should be entitled to immediate remedy to constitutional violations.
The Pope has more cash in his junk drawer, I'm pretty sure the Catholics are not impressed
Im just waiting for the pope to excommunicate him and the high level administration for crimes against humanity during this spat.
Is he even catholic?
Fuck it do it anyways. It would break the brains of half of the us. Most American Christians that I've ever met don't know the difference between Catholics and Christians.
Oh, come on guys, don't be like that. He's just hyping up the Prez vs Pope fight at the White House UFC event! It's not a real feud, as soon as they're done they'll hug in the cage and go back to being besties
Trump turns everything into a circus so it’ll be more WWE. Pope “Last Rites” Leo vs Donnie “The Art of the Deal Breaker” Trump. Leo’s got youth and stamina, Trumps got 120lb weight advantage. Leo could lock a win with his Second City Smite, but it’ll be curtains if Trump lands his Fifth Avenue Finisher. Oh, and who’s that in the mask!?! It’s Jeffrey Epstein with a steel chair!
The gold candle futures are about to crash.
“That’ll show them I’m the good guy”
Doing the right things for the wrong reasons
Win-win!
Fuck the Catholic church and fuck Donald Trump and fuck you