PROSPECT HEIGHTS — This Lenten season was intended to be a celebratory time for Catholic Relief Services as it marks 50 years of life-saving and community-building efforts through its annual Rice Bowl almsgiving program.
However, CRS now faces deep cuts in funding through the Trump Administration’s freezing of funds flowing from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), from which CRS gets half of its $1.5 billion budget. That money helps millions of people in over 120 countries, with a focus on alleviating hunger, poverty, and other hardships.
While the Trump administration continues to review U.S. aid abroad, CRS officials have alerted employees of probable cuts, and layoffs have begun.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio began the year with a declaration of President Donald Trump’s vision to end U.S. foreign aid that does not directly benefit the country.
“Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions,” Rubio said in a statement. “Does it make America safer? Does it make America Stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?”
This criteria differs from the mission statements of the Rice Bowl and other CRS programs — to “feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, and help the suffering,” Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus Octavio Cisneros said, adding that CRS is one way the Church in the United States is helping the poor.
Such are the directives from Jesus to the Church. In Matthew 25:40, he said, “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops created CRS in 1943 to meet the world’s need for a humanitarian aid organization for people displaced by World War II. Over time, it has expanded into relief aid for people caught in other crises or emergencies like drought, hurricanes, and earthquakes.
The origins of Rice Bowl reach back to 1975 when Catholics in Allentown, Pennsylvania, prayed, fasted, and gave alms to help people suffering from famine in the Sahel region of Sub-Saharan Africa.
By 1977, the Rice Bowl became a national program under the auspices of CRS through a vote by the USCCB. Since then, generations of Catholics across the United States have participated in the Rice Bowl each Lent to nub global hunger.
Bishop Cisneros has traveled extensively to observe the work of CRS.
In El Salvador, he witnessed projects that helped farmers diversify from traditional coffee crops into growing cocoa, which resists diseases better. Another CRS-supported program in El Salvador provided vocational training and job-placement services for young people previously dependent on violent gangs to earn money.
Bishop Cisneros has also seen homes rebuilt in the Philippines after a tsunami and in Nepal following an earthquake.
“Oh, what a joyous day,” he said while sharing photos of a Nepalese woman holding the tile of her new home — an abode built with modern features to withstand future quakes.
Meghan Clark, the faculty co-chair of St. John’s University CRS Global Campus Committee, is a longtime supporter of CRS through her personal almsgiving. She noted how CRS is the largest faith-based nonprofit group that partners with USAID, “and that is the case because they are incredibly effective.”
Clark said she traveled to Ghana in 2015 to observe programs to boost crop yields and child survival rates. There, support groups were created for mothers who received information about how to access nutrition and health care for their babies.
She said the CRS delegation asked a group of women if the aid was successful.
“A mother just held up this beautiful, healthy, chubby, 6-month old baby, and said, ‘Here’s your success,’ ” Clark said.
Clark, a professor of moral theology at St. John’s who lectures on the separation of Church and state, asserted that this concept should not prevent the U.S. government from supporting successful faith-based groups like CRS.
Separation of Church and state refers to not having a “state” church in the United States, Clark said, not the blocking of faith from the rest of civil life, including politics. Therefore, she added that funding CRS through USAID is not a “legitimate” separation-of-church-and-state issue.
“What CRS is doing is not proselytizing,” Clark said.
“They are not trying to convert people. They’re providing ethical development aid to places that do not have access to enough food, medicines, or educational resources — some of the most vulnerable and most marginalized in the world,” she explained.
Bishop Cisneros said CRS officials are discussing the possibility of holding an emergency collection in parishes to help offset the budget cuts. He assured that the organization’s work will endure.
“That’s our mission, and that will continue no matter what happens,” he said. “It’s the Church. The moment we cease to do that we cease to be the Church.”