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.”
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”.