President Trump says of Pope Leo, “I don’t think he’s doing a very good job.”
President Trump criticized Pope Leo at length on Truth Social on April 12th. But President Trump was once excited about the first American pope. what happened?
The Trump administration has cut off millions of dollars in funding to Catholic Charities of Miami.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), part of the Department of Health and Human Services, has provided funding to Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami under the Unaccompanied Children Program for many years. Catholic Charities received $11 million from HHS in fiscal year 2025, but that award ended March 31, according to federal spending data.
Archbishop Thomas Wenski of the Archdiocese of Miami called for a review of the decision in an April 15 op-ed in the Miami Herald. He said the archdiocese has worked with ORR since 1960 to provide shelter and other services to thousands of unaccompanied minor children. However, its abrupt termination will force the organization to suspend its services within three months.
“If future waves of unaccompanied minors flood our nation, it is incomprehensible that the U.S. government would discontinue a program that would be difficult to replicate at the level of caliber and excellence that Catholic Charities has achieved,” he wrote in an op-ed.
The decision comes amid President Donald Trump’s public criticism of Pope Leo XIV after the pope called for an end to the Iran war. Here’s what we know:
Why did HHS cut funding to Catholic Charities?
Asked about the decision to cut funding, HHS spokeswoman Emily Hilliard said the number of unaccompanied children receiving ORR care has decreased under the Trump administration.
“ORR is closing and consolidating unused facilities as the Trump Administration continues its efforts to stop illegal immigration and the smuggling and trafficking of unaccompanied alien children,” Hilliard said.
Wenski addressed that argument in an op-ed, but noted the program’s long history. Shelter Msgr. Brian O. Walsh Children’s Village helped resettle approximately 14,000 unaccompanied Cuban children under Operation Pedro Pan in the early 1960s and can now house up to 81 children.
“Our track record in serving this vulnerable population is unparalleled, but Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami’s services to unaccompanied minors will be defunded and forced to close within three months,” Wenski wrote in an editorial.
Two Republican congressmen from Florida, Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar and Rep. Carlos Gimenez, also issued a letter asking ORR to reconsider its decision.
“South Florida has always been the front line for humanitarian immigration in our hemisphere,” the April 3 letter said. They also warned about future immigration from Cuba and Haiti. “Catholic Charities offers trained staff, proven infrastructure, and decades of expertise that cannot be easily replaced…Losing this capability now will only make future response efforts more costly, time-consuming, and less effective.”
Neither the archdiocese nor Catholic Charities immediately responded to inquiries from USA TODAY.
President Trump publicly reprimands Pope Leo, cuts funding to Catholic Charities
On April 12, President Trump criticized Pope Leo XIV at length. The pope directly criticized not only the Iran war but also President Trump’s harsh words in the conflict, including his threat that “an entire civilization will perish tonight.”
President Trump called the pope “soft on crime” and credited Leo’s election as pope.
The pope responded to the post on April 13 during a conversation with reporters, saying, “I am not afraid of the Trump administration, nor will I speak out loud about the message of the Gospel.”
Vice President J.D. Vance, a Catholic, also said on April 14 that the pope should be “careful when speaking about theological issues.”
Trump again hit back at the Pope in an April 14 Truth social post. The president’s public jabs have angered some Catholics, the single largest religious denomination in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center.
Pope Leo has been calling for peace in recent days in posts about X, without mentioning his name. On April 16, he said in a speech in Cameroon that the world was “ravaged by a handful of tyrants.”
Miami Archbishop Wenski downplayed the public disagreements between Trump and Leo, commenting on the archdiocese’s blog that tensions between leaders are nothing new.
“(The pope) is not doing this to please the crowd,” Wenski said. “The only person the Pope really has to please is the Lord.”
Contributors: Phillip M. Bailey, Zac Anderson, Terry Collins, Bart Jansen, Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY
Kinsey Crowley is a Trump Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Please contact KCrowley@usatodayco.com. follow her X (Twitter), thread, blue sky and TikTok.
