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Vice President JD Vance and the Pope square off, as faith-based groups face an existential crisis.
Elizabeth Dias is the national religion correspondent and has reported on Christian aid work in countries including Sudan, North Korea and Cuba.
Feb. 15, 2025, 5:01 a.m. ET
Since World War II, as refugees fled Europe, Christian charity groups have delivered lifesaving American assistance around the world.
Catholic Relief Services has fed those who are suffering during famines. World Vision, an evangelical group, has given tens of millions of people access to clean water and found donors to sponsor hungry children. Lutheran and Episcopal organizations have resettled refugees in the United States.
Throughout the decades, these faith-based groups worked hand in hand with the federal government. Agencies like the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Department of Health and Human Services eventually funded them with hundreds of millions of dollars every year. Many of these groups believed helping the poor and vulnerable expressed their values not only as Christians, but also as Americans.
Now, that legacy — and the very survival of these organizations and the values they represent — is in existential crisis.
Over only a few weeks, President Trump has frozen foreign aid, tried to place thousands of U.S.A.I.D. workers on administrative leave and pushed ahead with his mass deportation plans. Elon Musk bragged he was “feeding U.S.A.I.D. into the wood chipper” and claimed without evidence that it was a “criminal organization.”
The sudden upheaval has left faith-based humanitarian groups with gaping funding deficits, hastily shuttered programs and unfolding layoffs.
