U.S. Catholic Bishops Launch Fresh Assault on President Donald Trump
Prelates cite Pope Leo XIV in social justice blitz against Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’
Catholic bishops in the U.S. have launched a new offensive against President Donald Trump, asserting that his One Big Beautiful Bill, is morally objectionable, inconsistent with Catholic values, and harmful to the weakest in society.
The sprawling 870-page bill, which was passed by Congress and signed into law by Trump on July 4, halts taxpayer funding for abortion providers like Planned Parenthood for one year and restricts federal support for gender-transition procedures.
A day before Trump signed the bill, Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), blasted it for ramping up immigration enforcement and making steeper cuts to Medicaid and clean energy tax credits. It also threatens the “social justice” policies of the bishops, who are known to be mostly left-wing in their political orientation and who favor big government, unlimited immigration, welfare spending, and state intervention on climate change.
“The final version of the bill includes unconscionable cuts to health care and food assistance, tax cuts that increase inequality, immigration provisions that harm families and children, and cuts to programs that protect God’s creation,” Broglio said, speaking on behalf of his brother bishops. “As its provisions go into effect, people will lose access to health care and struggle to buy groceries, family members will be separated, and vulnerable communities will be less prepared to cope with the environmental impacts of pollution and extreme weather. The bill, as passed, will cause the greatest harm to those who are especially vulnerable in our society.”
“Morally Repugnant”
Cardinal Robert McElroy, Archbishop of Washington, DC, and a close ally of Pope Leo XIV, told CNN insisted that the bill is “not only incompatible with Catholic teaching” but “inhumane” and “morally repugnant.”
McElroy claimed that millions would “ultimately lose their health care because of this bill so that billionaires can receive greater tax cuts.” Citing Pope Leo’s pro-immigration position, he warned that the Trump administration’s policy of “mass, indiscriminate deportation” is causing families to be intentionally ripped apart.
“There’s something radically wrong with a society that takes from the poorest to give to the wealthiest. It’s just wrong,” he said.
Later, he told The New York Times that “a very large number of Catholic bishops, and religious leaders in general, are outraged by the steps which the administration is taking to expel mostly hardworking, good people from the United States.”
Immigration Enforcement vs. Abortion Funding
In his July 5 statement, Archbishop of Santa Fe John Wester said the bill’s immigration provisions are the “most troubling” since it “endorses harsh mass deportations, stripping immigrants of due process, and disregarding their invaluable contributions to our society.”
“Environmental harm and increased danger at our borders are likely outcomes, especially for those fleeing hardship and persecution in search of safety,” he noted, complaining that the bill “promises many things, but it delivers very little unless you are among an elite few.”
The bishops cited Pope Leo in their June 26 letter to senators, underlining the Catholic Church’s advocacy “to overcome the unacceptable disproportion between the immense wealth concentrated in the hands of a few and the world’s poor.”
While commending the one-year moratorium “taxpayer subsidization of major abortion and ‘gender transition’ providers such as Planned Parenthood,” the letter warned that “the unprecedented increase in funding for immigration enforcement and detention would disproportionately impact immigrant and mixed-status families with strong ties to American communities.”
Catholic Convert Defies Pope and Bishops
On the same day, 20 Catholic bishops signed an interfaith letter with Muslim, Jewish, and Protestant leaders, slamming the bill for providing “tens of billions of dollars to the government to undertake a mass deportation campaign which will separate US families, harm US-citizen and immigrant children, and sow chaos in local communities.”
They claimed it
will spur immigration raids across the nation, harming hard-working immigrant families essential to our economy and causing widespread unrest like we recently witnessed in Los Angeles.
The bill provides funding for a border wall along the US-Mexico border, which we believe will drive migrants into the most remote regions of the border and lead to an increase in migrant deaths. It also would hurt the local environment along the border and force desperate asylum-seekers seeking safety to increasingly rely on human smugglers.
Ironically, despite opposition from Pope Leo XIV and the bishops to the bill’s policies, it was Vice President JD Vance — a convert to Catholicism — who cast the tie-breaking vote to pass it in the U.S. Senate.
Conservative Catholics Disagree with their Shepherds
In defiance of the bishops, conservative Catholics have expressed support for the bill.
“I believe Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill trumps all with its one billion-dollar cut of funding for Planned Parenthood,” Fr. Paul John Kalchik posted on X in response to Santa Fe’s bishop. “That’s a lot of abortions that will not be happening because of Trump’s initiative. Wester is all wet!”
The National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA) applauded Trump for including school choice in the bill, noting that it “looks forward to welcoming students in Catholic schools across the nation whose families may now be able to access a Catholic education for their children.”
Several Catholics on social media said the bishops are attacking the bill because of the huge financial losses they are facing as a result of the president reversing Joe Biden’s open-border policies.
Probe into Bishops’ Misuse of Funding for Migrants
In June, the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security and the Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability announced it is investigating the USCCB and Catholic Charities over the misuse of taxpayer funding to facilitate illegal immigration, as The Stream reported.
Earlier this year, prominent lay Catholics sent a letter Vance, a practicing Catholic, urging him to investigate the U.S. bishops under the provisions of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act — a law first used to prosecute the Mafia in the 1970s. The signatories noted that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has already “discovered that an obscene amount of funds has been given to the Catholic Church through its various organizations to help settle refugees and immigrants.”
As The Stream reported last September, Catholic Charities, which operates under the jurisdiction of the U.S. bishops, received nearly $1 billion from taxpayers via the Biden administration to facilitate illegal immigration.
Financial documents show that government grants for Catholic Charities nearly quadrupled after Biden took office in 2021, with most of the funds directed to the charity’s immigration services, particularly its operations near the southern U.S. border.
In May 2024, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched a probe into Annunciation House, a leading Catholic charity supported by the USCCB, for “planning and facilitating” illegal border crossings from Mexico into the US and operating as a “criminal enterprise.”
Papal Support for Illegal Immigration
Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV have both supported the US bishops in campaigning for open borders and looser restrictions on illegal aliens.
The new pope is a fierce critic of MAGA policies. A review of his X account while he was serving as Cardinal Robert Prevost shows a pattern of anti-Trump political advocacy. Three of his last five tweets criticize Trump’s migration policies and Vance’s interpretation of Catholic social teaching.
“Hardly any churchman has been more critical of the policies of this U.S. administration than Leo XIV,” commented Felix Neumann, deputy chairman of the Society of Catholic Journalists in Germany. “By electing this American as pope, the cardinals have sent a strong signal.”
Dr. Jules Gomes (BA, BD, MTh, PhD) has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.