Included in the federal funding cuts of President Donald Trump‘s rescissions bill is massive cuts for faith-based organizations that provide important services.
The organizations provide services for implementing foreign assistance and national security programming overseas and supporting refugee resettlement in the United States.
U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC), spoke on the U.S. Senate floor on the night of July 15 and slammed Trump and congressional Republicans for the rescissions package.
The Catholic senator shared a story of the more than 100-year-old St. Elizabeth of Hungary, a Catholic parish in Richmond. More than 40 years ago, Kaine and his wife, Anne, were married in the church and all three of their children were baptized in the church. The family attended Mass the previous Sunday and hear the story of the Good Samaritan.
St. Elizabeth‘s was founded by Italian and German immigrants in Richmond who felt that they were looked down upon because they were immigrants and they had foreign accents.
“And in the aftermath of World War I, people looked at German Americans and Italian Americans with some suspicion. German language was being criminalized in some of our states in the aftermath,” Kaine said on the Senate floor. “And these immigrant refugee Catholics decided that they wanted a place where they could feel welcomed, loved, and safe as they worshipped in accord with the American value of freedom to worship. And so they set up this little parish in the Highland Park neighborhood of Northside Richmond, Virginia, where they could go and be together and feel safe.”
They chose the church’s name from a teenager who lived 1,000 years ago in a time of poverty. She snuck bread to the poor, but was caught.
“And once she was caught and she was made to open her garment — and when she did open her garment, the bread had turned into roses — and that’s the miracle attributed to her. She lived only a short time and died, but she was made a saint by the Catholic Church,” Kaine said.
The Catholic parish in Richmond chose to name their church after her because they felt service to others was important during their time also. At the 100th celebration of the church, Kaine said that he thought of how much has changed since then, but also has not changed.
“Catholic Relief Services, which is one of the largest agencies in the United States that helps settle refugees who are legal immigrants — refugees are legal immigrants — about 15 years ago, settled a Congolese family into my church who had been in a refugee camp after fleeing violence in the Congo. Catholic, French and Swahili-speaking. One Congolese family came to my church,” Kaine said.
More families from the Congo later joined St. Elizabeth, because they felt comfortable worshipping in the parish. At the centennial celebration, Kaine said he realized his church looks different than it did 100 years ago, but, in other ways, it is the same.
“It’s a haven for people who are legal immigrants to the United States, but need a place where they can gather with others and feel welcome.”
Kaine’s story was relevant to Trump’s rescissions bill, because it cuts funding to churches who provide resettlement programs for refugees.
Ten organizations in the United States resettle refugees, and seven of them are faith-based.
“The practice of American religious organizations assisting in legal immigration goes back more than a century, and President Trump’s rescissions package that is before us wipes out funding to a dramatic degree for virtually all of them.”
Hundreds of staff at Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society have been laid off. World Relief said that Trump said he would defend persecuted Christians. The refugee resettlement program in the U.S. is one of the main ways the U.S. government protects Christians and others who are fleeing religious persecution. The Episcopal Church of the United States had to end its long standing refugee resettlement program. Lutheran Social Services is struggling to make payroll and laid off staff and reduced services. Staff at Catholic Charities has also been laid off.
“The families at my church, they come up to me after Mass on Sunday, and they’re so frightened about what might happen because many of them have families still in refugee camps who might want to come here as legal refugees, as legal immigrants,” Kaine said.
He said he does not know of another U.S. president who has attacked religious organizations “in such an orchestrated, intentional and calculated way as President Trump.”
Cutting funding, according to Kaine, “is an attack on the religious organizations so that they cannot do the work that their faith in their Creator compels them to do.”
However, Kaine said he is not surprised by Trump’s decision given his behavior toward legal refugees and immigrants in the country. What surprises him is that the legislation passed the U.S. House with little drama, although many delegates attend churches just like Kaine’s church.
Kaine said he will introduce an amendment to remove the cutting of funding for faith-based organizations from the rescissions bill, but his hope is that if the entire bill is not defeated, organizations like Catholic Relief Services and Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society are able to continue their work.
“My hope is that the Senate will realize this is good work that is really at the core of who we are as Americans. And tiny little parishes like St. Elizabeth of Hungary or synagogues or other churches all over this country who pride themselves on offering a welcoming environment for people who are here lawfully and want to make a way in America will be able to continue to do just that.”
On X on July 13, the new Pope Leo XIV posted that the story of the Good Samaritan is a parable that “speaks to us first about God‘s way of seeing us, so that we in turn can learn how to see situations and people with his eyes, so full of love and compassion.”
Support AFP
Share
Rebecca Barnabi
