Michael Czerny, Canadian cardinal at Vatican, blasts 'ruthless' plans to dismantle USAID
Czerny, speaking for Vatican's Caritas Internationalis charity, says steep aid cuts will be disruptive
The Vatican's charity voiced outrage Monday at what it called the "reckless" and "unhuman" U.S. plans to gut USAID, with Pope Francis's point man on development aid insisting that the Trump administration remember Christian principles about caring for others as it begins governing.
Cardinal Michael Czerny, the Czech-born Canadian Jesuit, is one of the cardinals most closely associated with Francis's pontificate and heads the Vatican office responsible for migrants, the environment, the church's Caritas Internationalis charity and development.
Caritas on Monday warned that millions of people will die as a result of the "ruthless" U.S. decision to "recklessly" stop USAID funding, and hundreds of millions more will be condemned to "dehumanizing poverty."
USAID is the main international humanitarian and development arm of the U.S. government and in 2023 managed more than $40 billion US in combined appropriations, accounting for around 40 per cent of the global aid budget.
The Trump administration and billionaire ally Elon Musk have targeted USAID hardest so far in their challenge of the federal government: A sweeping funding freeze has shut down most of USAID's programs worldwide, though a federal judge on Friday put a temporary halt to plans to pull thousands of agency staffers off the job.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Czerny said every incoming government has the right to review its foreign aid budget, and even to reform an agency like USAID. But he said it's another thing to dismantle an agency after it has made funding commitments.
"There are programs underway and expectations — and we might even say commitments. And to break commitments is a serious thing," Czerny, 78, said Sunday. "So while every government is qualified to review its budget in the case of foreign aid, it would be good to have some warning because it takes time to find other sources of funding or to find other ways of meeting the problems we have."
One of USAID's biggest non-governmental recipients of funding is Catholic Relief Services, the aid agency of the Catholic Church in the U.S., which has already sounded the alarm about the cuts. Other programs, including Caritas international programs at the diocesan and national levels, are also being directly or indirectly affected, Czerny said.
In a statement, Caritas urged governments to urgently call on the U.S. administration to reverse course.
While large, the USAID budget is less than one percentage point of the U.S. gross domestic product and a fraction of the biblical call to tithe 10 per cent of one's income, noted Czerny, who attended high school in Montreal and later founded the Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and Justice in Toronto.
UN AIDS agency sounds warning
Czerny's comments come as the head of the UN AIDS agency is also warning that HIV infections would rise without USAID's significant reach.
"We will see a surge in this disease," UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima said in an interview with The Associated Press.
"This will cost lives if the American government doesn't change its mind and maintain its leadership," she said, adding that it was not her place to criticize any government's policy.
In one Kenyan county, she said 550 HIV workers were immediately laid off, while thousands of others in Ethiopia were terminated, leaving health officials unable to track the epidemic.
She noted that the loss of U.S. funding to HIV programs in some countries was catastrophic, with external funding, mostly from the U.S., accounting for about 90 per cent of their programs. Nearly $400 million US goes to countries like Uganda, Mozambique and Tanzania, she said.
"We can work with [the Americans] on how to decrease their contribution if they wish to decrease it," she said.
Byanyima also said the loss of American support in efforts to combat HIV was coming at another critical time, with the arrival of what she called "a magical prevention tool" known as lenacapavir, a twice-yearly shot that was shown to offer complete protection against HIV in women, and which worked nearly as well as for men.
She noted that lenacapavir, sold as Sunlenca, was developed by the American company Gilead.
Treatment of migrants a concern
Another area of concern for the Vatican and Catholic hierarchy in the U.S. is the Trump administration's crackdown on undocumented migrants. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said last week that more than 8,000 people had been arrested in immigration enforcement actions since Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration.
Some are being held in federal prisons while others are starting to be sent to the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.
"A crackdown is a terrible way to administer affairs, and much less to administer justice," said Czerny, whose own family immigrated to Canada as refugees after the Second World War. "And so I'm very sorry that many people are being hurt and indeed terrorized by the measures.
"All we can hope for is that the people, God's people and the people of goodwill, will help and protect those vulnerable people who are suddenly made much more vulnerable," he added.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops put out an unusually critical statement after President Donald Trump's initial executive orders, saying those "focused on the treatment of immigrants and refugees, foreign aid, expansion of the death penalty, and the environment, are deeply troubling and will have negative consequences, many of which will harm the most vulnerable among us."
Inspired by the biblical call to "welcome the stranger," Francis has made caring for migrants a priority of his pontificate, demanding that countries welcome, protect, promote and integrate those fleeing conflicts, poverty and climate disasters. Francis has also said governments are expected to do so to the limits of their capacity.
With files from CBC News