“There is not a Catholic Charities program that has not been impacted in some way…picture is not a pretty one.”
Jim Kuh, Director of immigration and refugee services for Catholic Charities USA
Here we go again, another whinny story about how that mean ol’ Donald Trump is hurting Catholic RELIGIOUS programsby cutting the number of refugees who come with federal funding attached to each one!
Before reading on check out the Capital Research Centertutorial on why it is bad policy all around for taxpayers to fund Catholic Charities.
This is what I think every time I see stories like this: If the Catholic Church and its members want to help the poor throughout the world, they should use their own private charity! And, better still, be brave and go to where the people are suffering and help them there. It is not the role of the US government to fund the church’s good works!
(Editor: as I said yesterday, in order to read the rest of this post, click on the link below!) Continue reading “Catholics close 20 refugee offices, layoff hundreds as federal funding plummets”→
And, they are putting out their first moves for 2019!
I promised long ago to report on the enormous funding the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) receive from the US Treasury every time they make political statements about how the Trump Administration isn’t doing enough for refugees. See one such post here.
I also promised to stop reporting on their millions of taxpayer dollars if they would only start to mention their financial stake in the US Refugee Admissions Program in their public statements. Here is the latest and of course (again!) no mention of their millions of taxpayer dollars.
From Catholic News Agency:
Washington D.C., Mar 28, 2018 / 05:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The U.S. bishops have voiced concern over the abnormally low levels of refugees admitted to the U.S. under the Trump administration, saying that it puts those fleeing danger at risk, and fails to comply with Christian teaching on welcoming the stranger.
“The current level of refugee arrivals leaves thousands of vulnerable people in harm’s way and searching for protection,” said Bishop Joe Vasquez, speaking as chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee On Migration.
The good Bishop never mentions that immigrants=federal funding!
The bishops’ March 26 letterwas sent to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and to the U.S. State Department.
“As Christians, our concerns for refugees is integral to our life of faith,” the bishops said. “In this spirit, we urge the Administration to renew a bipartisan commitment to resettlement for refugees, including religious minorities.” [I told you here just yesterdaythat ‘bipartisan’ means the R’s want cheap labor and indeed the USCCB acts as a headhunter for big business.—ed]
[….]
These trends “signify an abdication of our nation’s leadership in humanitarian protection through resettlement and in championing international religious freedom,” the bishops charged.
Here we go again, they cite Jesus. I feel sure Jesus never meant that citizens should be taxed to pay for Christian charity to the poor stranger.
They cited Jesus’ words from the Gospel of Matthew, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me,” as well as the Old Testament’s exhortations to care for the stranger.
Ha! Ha! This next bit made me laugh. Itold you just the other day that the political push would soon begin for fiscal year ’19, and right on cue….. They want 75,000 beginning October 1, 2018. I thought they would demand 100,000 as their opening bid, so I was wrong.
They called on the Trump administration to admit at least 45,000 refugees in this fiscal year and to issue a presidential determination allowing 75,000 refugees to enter the country next year. They again requested a meeting with Trump to discuss how to address refugee processing. [See the letter to the President, here.—ed]
Now to the millions the Bishops stand to lose during the Trump presidency (something they never mention)!
A couple of years ago we found an annual report for the Bishops’ Migration Fund, see here, and learned that the fund is 97% funded by the federal government (parishioners put very little into the fund for immigrants and refugees). We have not found an annual report since that one in 2014 (strange, huh!).
However, here in an audit of the USCCBfor 2015 and 2016, we see this (below) on page 14. (Dear White House, before granting a meeting, be sure the President knows about this!)
DOING WELL BY DOING GOOD!
Catholics should consider addressing this issue with your parish priests. Go here for my complete archive on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
And, Happy Easter! Happy Passover too!
…to put it another way—Live by the government, die by the government!
I wasn’t planning to get into this story about how a Lesbian couple was denied the right to foster a refugee child by Catholic Charities because the couple is a same-sex couple, but couldn’t resist when I saw this Leftwing report on a “Rightwing” TV interview. Donohue wrote a book entitled: Twilight of Liberty! Unbelievable that he can’t see that being financially beholden to the federal government doesn’t exactly advance ‘religious’ liberty!
You may be surprised to hear that I am on the side of the Lesbians in this case.
Why? Because Catholic Charities wouldn’t be in this pickle if they weren’t living off the federal dole with their millions of dollars in grants/contracts they receive from taxpayers.
You might be saying, well they probably would still go after Catholic Charities, yes, maybe, but would have a more difficult road if it weren’t for all the federal money that goes directly to CC and indirectly via the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, one of nine major federal refugee contractors.*** Catholic agencies can’t act like they are private RELIGIOUS organizations while living off you and me via the US Treasury.
From The Advocate:
A Texas lesbian couple’s lawsuit over the denial of a foster care opportunity amounts to “gay bullying and harassment” in the mind of right-wing Catholic activist and noted homophobe Bill Donohue.
Fatma Marouf and Bryn Esplin filed suit in federal court Tuesday against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and several federal government agencies after the director of international foster care at the Catholic Charities of Fort Worth turned down their application to foster a refugee child because they don’t “mirror the Holy Family,” The Texas Tribune reports. The bishops’ conference receives federal funding that it funnels to the foster care program, so it is using taxpayer dollars to illegally discriminate based on Catholic beliefs, say the women, who are represented by Lambda Legal.
But Donohue contends the women are just trying to bully the Catholic church. “They’re gay activists,” he said Wednesday on The Ingraham Angle, Laura Ingraham’s show on the Fox News Channel (watch below). “They are trying to shove their secular values down our throats. … Secular militants [are] trying to shove their way in and basically neuter Catholic institutions,” he continued.
He and Ingraham both said the couple could go to other religious groups or secular agencies in search of foster care opportunities, but they are targeting Catholic institutions to rob them of their religious identity. “The intent is to intimidate, to bully, to get them to capitulate,” Donohue said. In some states, Catholic groups have ceased providing adoption or foster care services rather than serve same-sex couples.
More here. When Catholic Charities and the Bishops give up their federal boodle, then I’ll listen to their “religious identity” arguments.
Decide! Religious principles OR federal money!
If you missed it last month, go here, and see Capital Research Center‘s educational youtube on CC and its dependency on federal money.
*** These are the nine federally funded refugee agencies operating in the US.
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of their income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees and get them signed up for their services (aka welfare)! From most recent accounting, here.
They want to blame it all of course on Donald Trump (and Stephen Miller!), but the refugee slowdown has exposed the weakness of a scheme set up in 1979-1980 by then Senator Ted Kennedy (with Joe Biden) and Jimmy Carter. The architects…. The whole program was sold as a public-private partnership implying that there would be an equal sharing of finances and responsibility, but over the years the public share (your tax ‘contributions’) has grown while the private share has withered.
So that now, with the per refugee head payment dropping as fewer refugee are admitted, the program is being exposed for what it has become….
It is a monopolistic conglomeration of supposed ‘religious’ and ‘humanitarian’ charities living almost exclusively on the federal dole. Their budgets are fully dependent on the next shipment of paying clients (aka refugees).
Come on Congress! It is time to dump it or fix it.
I notice that with all the talk about reforming LEGAL immigration there is no talk of reforming the obviously seriously flawed USRAP!
The program is “under siege” say the refugee agencies and their media lackeys!
Rarely do I post twice on one story, but I told you about this one yesterday (here) and it is full of revealing information. I see it is a ‘Religion News Service’ story that appears herein the National Catholic Reporter showcasing (again) that anti-Trump rally last month at the White House.
Do they really think the average American taxpayer will be moved by a photo of Muslims praying against the President as a publicity stunt?
The big banner on the right is the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society protest march banner. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2018/01/28/church-world-service-and-hias-join-cair-to-protest-at-white-house/
Boo hoo! We Catholics are running out of your money!
USCCB [US Conference of Catholic Bishops—ed] officials said they are still deciding how to move forward but already expect to close about 15 sites this year, shifting from 75 to as few as 60. Catholic Charities, the primary affiliate for the USCCB’s on-the-ground resettlement work, said that of the 700 full-time employees across its network who work on refugee resettlement, more than 300 are estimated to see a temporary layoff, permanent layoff or possible reassignment due to the refugee ban.
An April 2017 report from the Episcopal News Service said the Episcopal Church would cut its 31-member affiliate network by six in 2018.
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service said it had not closed any sites, though before she resigned earlier this week as its president and CEO, Linda Hartke confirmed the agency has made staff reductions at its headquarters. [This is especially funny because we know that many staff at headquarters quit due toHartke’s poor management!—Now it is all Donald’s fault!—How convenient!—ed]
Maybe if the top dogs took pay cuts, and raised PRIVATE money, the lower level staff could be retained?
Local organizations appear to bear the brunt of the cuts. [Sure they do, no one really expects the CEO’s to take pay cuts.—ed]Paula Torisk, deputy director of refugee resettlement for Catholic Charities San Antonio, which works with the USCCB’s program, said her office has laid off at least 23 people because of the various bans — around 30 percent to 35 percent of her staff.
Lower level staff are unemployed because the whole refugee program is built (wrongly) as a Ponzi scheme. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2018/02/16/trump-administration-wrongly-blamed-for-closure-of-refugee-offices/
She said many of those who lost their jobs are, like Giri [refugee star of the story—ed], themselves refugees or former refugees who have since become U.S. citizens. Her office previously relied on their cultural knowledge and language skills but has been forced to hire translators in their absence.
“You’ve got staff taking on cases where they don’t speak the language,” said Torisk, who has worked with refugees since 1996. “I’ve heard other resettlement programs say, ‘How can we pay for [interpreters] if our funding is cut?’”
She also said that due to uncertainty surrounding the program, funding for the longer-term refugee assistance — such as providing English classes — is now doled out on a quarterly basis instead of annually throughout Texas.
There is much more, but you get my drift.
The whole 1980 system is based on an ever-expanding refugee flow to America and over the ensuing decades the contractors (below) got fat and lazy because federal money flowed like a river to them and they built fiefdoms with it!
I repeat: Where is Congress?
The nine refugee contractors “fighting for their survival”….
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of their income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees and get them signed up for their services (aka welfare)! From most recent accounting, here.
That is the title of this excellent youtube clip from theCapital Research Center that echoes a major theme here at RRW. (Hat tip: John) Send it to your friends and family!
(The link to the video is here in case you can’t play it above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxK3ILdN8SM&feature=youtu.be )
If you search USASpending.govyou should be able to find out how much government money is going to your local Catholic Charities. Be sure to check off grants and contracts and select years.
Some Catholic Charities are under the budget umbrella of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (one of nine federal contractors for the resettlement of refugees), but that is not the only money CC is getting directly from you—the US taxpayer.
These are the nine federal contractors, for six of them the same message applies—-religious groups should not be getting federal dollars! (Nor should the secular non-profits, but at least they aren’t being as hypocritical as the supposedly religious ones.)
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of federal funding each received in 2015 or 2016, see here:
Here we go again, another whinny story about how that mean ol’ Donald Trump is hurting Catholic RELIGIOUS programs by cutting the number of refugees who come with federal funding attached to each one!
