Catholic Relief Services is reportedly preparing for “massive cuts” to its staff and programs amid President Donald Trump’s gutting of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which accounted for nearly half the organization’s budget.
CRS, which received $4.6 billion in USAID funds and was among the agency’s largest grant recipients for nearly a decade, is already cutting staff and reducing charity programs, The National Catholic Reporter reports. The organization was founded by Catholic bishops in the United States with a mission to “assist impoverished and disadvantaged people overseas.”
An email from CRS CEO Sean Callahan sent Monday noted that USAID supplies about half of the Catholic group’s $1.5 billion budget.
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“We anticipate that we will be a much smaller overall organization by the end of this fiscal year,” wrote Callahan, as quoted by NCR.
Callahan said cuts to staff and other cost-saving measures would impact all of the departments of the Catholic organization, with temporary furloughs not being enough to balance the budget.
“To target this tiny portion of the federal budget in such a haphazard and irresponsible way is going to cost people’s lives and livelihoods,” Stephen Colecchi, former director of the Office of International Justice and Peace for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, was quoted as saying.
“It is not a thoughtful or humane way to go about treating programs that help the poorest of the poor all over the world.”
With over 7,000 employees globally, CRS serves over 136 million people in over 100 countries across five continents, according to a 2018 factsheet. With a $1.5 billion budget in 2023, financial records show CRS received over $521 million in U.S. grants and agreements.
The Trump administration intends to drastically reduce the staff at USAID from around 10,000 people to fewer than 300, sources told Reuters.
The White House contends the cuts are necessary to combat “waste and abuse” at USAID, charging that the organization has been supporting “ridiculous — and, in many cases, malicious — pet projects of entrenched bureaucrats, with next-to-no oversight.”
Examples cited by the administration include $1.5 million spent on “advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities,” $2 million spent on sex changes and “LGBT activism” in Guatemala, and sending hundreds of thousands of free meals to al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists in Syria.
CRS is not the only Christian humanitarian organization suffering cuts as a result of the Trump administration’s policies.
Episcopal Migration Ministries recently cut 22 staff members and wound down its refugee resettlement programs after Trump issued an executive order suspending federal funding for such programs.
Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe stated in a letter reported on by Episcopal News Service that it was a “painful decision” for the EMM to enact such cuts.
“EMM will retain a small team to manage the wind down of EMM’s federal grant-sponsored programs,” Rowe said. “They have been selected based on program responsibilities and knowledge, performance, ability to communicate with affiliate and federal partners, and some consideration for seniority.”
World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals that receives funding from the State Department to resettle refugees in the U.S., said it was told four days after the order was signed to halt all government-funded activities serving almost 4,000 refugees. In an email to supporters last month, World Relief announced it faces an “$8 million critical funding gap that must be filled in the next month as a result of the federal funding suspension.”
The organization laid off over 140 staff members and closed five offices when similar actions were taken during Trump’s first term in office between 2017 and 2021.
