(LifeSiteNews) — Catholic Relief Services (CRS) will lose federal funding for 11 of its 13 international food aid programs, as part of the Trump administration’s effort to realign foreign aid with American interests and values.
The decision – affecting more than 780,000 schoolchildren across 11 countries – was confirmed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which administers the McGovern-Dole Food for Education Program, supporting school meals and maternal-child nutrition globally.
From 2013 to 2022, CRS received $4.6 billion from USAID – more than any other organization in the world. According to a 2024 audit, over half of its annual $1.2 billion budget came from U.S. taxpayers.
The agency now faces the possibility of cutting 50% of its global staff – numbering around 7,000 – after the administration froze most USAID funding earlier this year.
CRS president Sean Callahan warned of devastating consequences, calling the move a “life-altering blow.” Callahan claimed that “hundreds of thousands” of children rely on these school meals as their only reliable source of food.
“Ending a program that provides a child’s only meal is deeply troubling,” he said in a statement, “and goes against our values as a nation and as people of faith.”
But despite being founded by the USCCB, critics say that CRS is not simply about feeding the poor, and certainly not about the Catholic faith.
In 2024, Lepanto and Population Research Institute exposed CRS’s promotion of contraception in African countries, and its work with organizations that refer clients for abortions.
Additional reporting from CatholicVote found that that CRS had “attempted to mislead senators by stating that African bishops were not opposed to an AIDS relief program that would promote abortion.”
“Catholic Relief Services, as an organization, shouldn’t be receiving federal funds anyway,” Hichborn told EWTN’s The World Over in February, “because USAID was created primarily as a population control organization.”
He also recalled a conversation with Sean Callahan, CEO of CRS, who claimed that “CRS works to convert people’s minds to how to treat people and how to do things, but not to the Catholic Faith.”
A spokesman for the USDA told Catholic News Agency also said that in future, foreign aid will be spent “implementing existing projects as well as any new projects that continue to put American agriculture at the forefront and align with the president’s agenda.”
