Trump vs. the Church: Miami's Catholic Charities Becomes the Latest Casualty

As the president publicly attacks the pope, the administration has stripped $11 million from a Catholic ministry that sheltered unaccompanied children for six decades. Church leaders call it a betrayal.

For most of the past century, the relationship between the U.S. government and the Catholic Church in America has weathered wars, recessions, and political upheaval. It survived disagreements over labor rights, contraception, and the death penalty. It survived Trump's first term.

It may not survive this one.

The Trump administration this week canceled an $11 million contract with Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami, abruptly terminating a partnership that sheltered unaccompanied migrant children in South Florida for more than sixty years. The move came days after President Trump publicly attacked Pope Leo XIV — the first American-born pontiff — calling him "WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy" and suggesting he was "catering to the Radical Left." Church leaders across the country say the two events are inseparable.

"The U.S. government has abruptly decided to end more than 60 years of relationship with Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of Miami," Archbishop Thomas Wenski wrote in a statement to the Miami Herald. Wenski, who recently defended the pope amid his clash with Trump — saying he "doesn't have to please anybody except the Lord" — did not stop there. The Archdiocese's program, he noted, "has been recognized for its excellence and has served as a model for other agencies throughout the country." Dismantling it, he wrote, is "baffling."

The Contract, the Program, the Stakes

The canceled contract funded the Msgr. Bryan O. Walsh Center, an 81-bed emergency shelter that also provides foster care and family reunification services for children who arrive in the United States without a parent or adult guardian. The center is named for Father Bryan Walsh, the Irish-born priest who in 1960 opened Miami's doors to the first wave of Cuban children flown out of Havana as Operation Pedro Pan — the largest known exodus of unaccompanied minors in the Western Hemisphere — got underway.

That founding moment has defined the Archdiocese's mission ever since. The government noticed: the Walsh Center became a nationally recognized model for unaccompanied minor care, its methods studied and replicated by other agencies across the country.

Catholic Charities received notice of the cancellation in late March. The program has approximately three months before it must shut down. Children are currently in its care, and as of this week there is no public plan for where they will go.

The Department of Health and Human Services cited a decline in border crossings as the rationale, noting that the number of unaccompanied children in federal custody has dropped from a peak of 22,000 under the Biden administration to roughly 1,900 today. "ORR is closing and consolidating unused facilities," HHS press secretary Emily G. Hillard said — without addressing the Miami program by name.

Wenski acknowledged the decline in arrivals. He rejected the logic that it justifies demolishing a program built over six decades. "It is baffling," he wrote, "that the U.S. government would shut down a program that it would be hard-pressed to replicate at the level of competence" demonstrated by the Church.

An Open Rupture

The cancellation is the sharpest financial blow yet in what has become a remarkable rupture between the Trump administration and American Catholic institutions.

The feud with Pope Leo has escalated rapidly in recent weeks. Leo — a Chicago native elected as the first American pope last year — has urged a ceasefire in the U.S.-led war with Iran, declaring in an April homily "Stop! It is time for peace!" and writing that "God does not bless any conflict." He has also questioned whether the administration's immigration crackdown is truly "pro-life."

Trump's response last Sunday was extraordinary in its tone. In a Truth Social post, he accused Leo of favoring nuclear-armed Iran, claimed the Vatican only elected an American pope to curry favor with the White House, and suggested Leo was hurting the Catholic Church. He then posted what appeared to be an AI-generated image depicting himself in a Christ-like pose.

The backlash from within the Church was swift and broad. Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he was "disheartened" by the president's words. Bishop Robert Barron — a member of Trump's own Religious Liberty Commission — called the posts "entirely inappropriate and disrespectful" and said the president owed the pope an apology. Conservative commentator Erick Erickson warned on social media that Christian Trump supporters "who have stood with him through Iran" were "waking up to his blasphemy."

Leo, speaking aboard the papal airplane en route to a tour of Africa, declined to be drawn into an argument. "I have no fear of the Trump administration," he said. "I will continue to speak out loudly against war."

A Costly Loyalty

For the pews of South Florida, the contract cancellation is not an abstraction. Father Federico Capdepom, who retired in 2016 after 33 years of priesthood in the Archdiocese, told CBS News Miami he was gutted. "I feel very sad. Disappointed," he said. "To abruptly cancel $11 million of help for migrants — I think it's totally unacceptable." A parishioner simply called it "disgraceful."

Trump won 55 percent of the Catholic vote in the 2024 election. His approval among Catholics has since fallen well below 50 percent, driven by the Iran war and his attacks on Leo. He earned their trust. The question now, for many of the faithful, is what he intends to do with it.

The Walsh Center will close in a matter of months. The children inside will be sent somewhere. And the Church — which has served the poorest of the poor in this country since long before the federal government thought to ask for help — will be left to decide what it owes a government that just walked away from sixty years of shared work.