The USCCB Should Be Disbanded

[00:00:00] Foreign the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is back in the news, and this time because they have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for cutting off the federal funds at the USCCB receives for helping migrants. [00:00:28] Now, I want to get into that in a little bit in this podcast, but I want to really break down what is the usccb what's its origins? What place does it serve in the church? Why is it involved in migrant services in the first place? And then I do want to argue why I think the USCCB should be disbanded. We're going to cover all that today. Might be a long episode, but I think it's an important one for Catholics to understand because I think a lot of us don't really understand what the USCCB is and how it fits into the structure of the church. Okay, so let's just go ahead and get started with the origins of the usccb. Really, we should look at the origins of national conferences of Catholic bishops, Episcopal conferences that are national in scope in the Catholic Church. Now, some would argue that you can see this all the, this type of structure all the way back in the early church. There is some truth to that. In the early church, there's no question there was a certain hierarchy within the hierarchy where there was metropolitan, this still exists in theory today, where there were metropolitan bishops of big cities and they kind of oversaw other dioceses as well. [00:01:47] They had their own bishops and they'd unite sometimes in synods, in meetings to determine maybe some issue that was happening in the church, maybe a heresy that was starting to run rampant in the region and they'd want to address it, nip it in the bud. [00:02:02] So definitely there is a long history in the Catholic Church of bishops in localized areas gathering together to address needs of the kind of the local greater region beyond just the diocese these became. And then of course, the most famous example of these is when they became universal ecumenical councils. The first, the Council of Nicaea in 325, is the most famous one, called by the emperor Constantine. And this, of course, went against Arianism and declared that Jesus Christ truly is God and man. [00:02:41] And so these, these localized synods, though, did exist. Now, I want to make a real quick aside. There's a lot of talk about synodality and synods in the church today. I've had podcasts about this before. The synods we see in Rome are not what we're talking about here. [00:02:57] The synods I'm talking about in the early church were like one off gatherings that would just happen to address some issue by some region. So for example, all the bishops in Egypt or something like that might gather together. [00:03:12] And so, and that's. And they would address something going on of the time. And if the issue got really big, like with Arius, then you had an ecumenical council of all the bishops in the universal church. [00:03:26] So really in the, in the west, in the east, this structure kind of remained, but in the west, it really kind of fell out of favor. There still would be regional meetings at times, but really things became much more centralized at Rome. [00:03:39] However, in the 19th century, there was a rise again of these national meetings of bishops. And the first, I think you call maybe the first, at least one of the first national conference of Catholic bishops happened in Germany. And I'm just going to say it. How many good things have come out of Germany when it comes to Catholicism? I mean, we have Martin Luther, we have the German bishops today. And trust me, 19th century German Catholicism was not a high point of orthodoxy in the Catholic Church. [00:04:14] But the German bishops conference began to meet in the 19th century. We also saw meetings of American bishops in Baltimore. I'm going to cover that in a minute when I talk more about, specifically about the USCCB and. And then we see in the 20th century, this is all pre Vatican II. I'll make sure that that's clear. We saw various episcopal conferences, national episcopal conferences, rise up in different areas, including in the United States. [00:04:42] Now, what happened was then Vatican II happened in the early, in the early 1960s, so 1962, 1965, and they actually address the issue of episcopal conferences. And they did it in the document Christus Dominus. Let me pull up one of the quotes from the council that talks specifically about episcopal conferences. Remember, they already exist in some countries, not all, not worldwide, but in some countries. And so Vatican II says in these days especially, bishops frequently are unable to fulfill their office effectively and fruitfully unless they develop a common effort involving constant growth in harmony and closeness of ties with other bishops. [00:05:31] Episcopal conferences already established in many nations have furnished outstanding proofs of a more fruitful apostolate. [00:05:39] Therefore, this sacred synod considers it to be supremely fitting that everywhere bishops belonging to the same nation or region form an association which would meet at fixed times. [00:05:52] Thus, when the insights of prudence and experience have been shared and views exchanged, there will emerge a holy union of energies in the service of the common good of the churches. [00:06:04] Next paragraph states, an episcopal conference is, as it were, a council in which the bishops of a given nation or territory jointly exercise their pastoral office to promote the greater good which the church offers mankind Especially through the forms and methods of the apostolate fittingly adapted to the circumstances of the age. Yeah, this is very Vatican II type language. But essentially what's saying is we notice the Vatican to saying we notice national episcopal conferences exist, have exit. Exist around the world, various places. We think they should exist everywhere. And we in fact are saying we need to have episcopal conferences in every country. [00:06:50] And so you see, what is the purpose of it, of episcopal conferences? To promote the greater good which the Church offers mankind, especially through the forms and methods of the apostolate fittingly adapted to the circumstances of the age, which is very generic language. It's very difficult to know exactly what that means. I mean, basically what it's saying is we think it'd be good that every nation has an episcopal conference where bishops of the country come together on a regular basis to talk about the issues of the church in that country. It all sounds fine. I mean, in fact, I mean, you know, whatever, it's. There's nothing like earth shattering about it. [00:07:35] Then after Vatican II, in 1966, Pope Paul VI issued a motu proprio entitled Ecclesia sante. Ecclesia Sante 1966, a motor proprio. Remember, Moto proprio is a papal document that basically is like a. [00:07:52] It's like from his own office, just saying, I'm going to institute these rules almost like an executive order. And we know all about those from Trump in the past few weeks. It's like an executive order in many ways. [00:08:04] And essentially what it did was it defined a lot of what a episcopal conference should do. It said, again in keeping with Act 2, Paul VI said, I declare every nation territory needs to have an episcopal conference. And it kind of defined who is part of this conference. You know, our bishops are patriarchs, are cardinals are, but not vicar generals, things like that. [00:08:28] And it also defined what should the episcopal conferences do. By the way, I will link in the show notes to both the document from Christus Dominus from Vatican ii plus Ecclesia Sante from Pope Paul vi. So you can read it for yourself if you want to. [00:08:47] When you go through that document, Paul VI's document, that is what you see is essentially episcopal conferences are charged with a lot of administrative tasks. It's basically the administrative state for the Catholic Church. [00:09:04] And yes, I will just say it, it's forming a layer of bureaucracy. Now, I typically say a lot of negative things about bureaucracy and there's a lot of negative things to say about bureaucracy. I'm not saying all layers of administration is bad. And should be abolished or anything like that. But I'm just saying we need to understand what national Episcopal conferences are. And they're basically an administrative layer in the church. And the idea is, I mean, I'm giving all the benefit of doubt of the people who promoted this and implemented it, that they wanted what's best for the church. The idea is to make it more efficient. The church had gotten so big and the world had gotten so big that it's difficult for the Vatican to really have relationships with, for example, the direct relationship with the bishop of Dubuque or something like that, or some bishop in the middle of South America or Africa or Asia. So instead, there would be this. This layer added on, and there would be a. They would be given certain duties. And duties could include things like they collect certain offerings. And we know this, the USCCB does this. They collect certain national offerings at times. They advise in the selecting of new bishops. They determine things like what happens when a bishop resigns, where does he reside, can he reside in his diocese, things like that. They're the ones who set like, for example, holy days of obligations. [00:10:28] The universal church sets them. But then a national conference of Catholic bishops can modify them as they think it fits the needs of the. [00:10:39] The local church. The national church they could define. Like, for example, it's usccb. Well, usccb. We'll see in the history of USCCB in a minute that it didn't really exist in its current form till later. But the predecessor of it basically can set, for example, that the Friday penance would not be. Does not have to be giving up meat, abstaining from meat, but it could be something else. [00:11:03] Clearly, the idea here is the administration of the Catholic Church is a massive undertaking. [00:11:12] And people in the church at that time believed that it was necessary to add this extra. They saw, okay, there's countries doing these Episcopal conferences. They seem to be working pretty well for administering things. Let's go ahead and make it a mandatory part of the church's structure. And note, the church can do this. I mean, it's not like the Pope didn't have authority and ecumenical council didn't have authority. That's exactly what they have authority to do, is things like this that they can decide, okay, we're going to require national Episcopal conferences. And that's what they officially did in the 1960s, from Vatican through Vatican II and after Vatican II. But again, they did exist before that. [00:11:55] It's. Here's the key point to remember here. [00:11:59] There is no theological foundation for Episcopal, national Episcopal conferences. [00:12:07] What I Mean by that is not that they're immoral. I mean, they could do immoral things, but not that they're structures. Like I said, the Church has the authority to create man made institutions within the church to manage the Church. The College of Cardinals is a man made institution. There's nothing in divine revelation from our Lord himself that says, okay, you need to select certain bishops to be cardinals and they're the ones who are going to elect the Pope. That's all man made. It can be changed. Likewise with episcopal conferences. [00:12:37] What is divinely instituted by Christ is the hierarchy of the Church, which is the bishops united to the Pope and with priests and deacons under them, the order of sacraments, which is the, you know, the episcopate, the priesthood and the diaconate. That is divinely instituted by Jesus Christ, that cannot be abolished. That cannot be changed. [00:12:59] Likewise, the institution of the papacy was instituted by Christ himself, therefore it cannot be abolished. [00:13:07] And so therefore we have this idea of the Pope as the head of the Church with the bishops united to him and priests and deacons serving those bishops. That is divinely instituted. The layer of like for the layer of the Vatican itself, the bureaucracy of the Vatican, that is all man made. [00:13:28] The layer of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, that's all man made. [00:13:34] Again, I'm not saying we shouldn't have certain man made institutions within the Church. We have to just to manage things. But we can change them. We can abolish them, we can add new ones and things of that nature. [00:13:46] So it's important to remember the national conferences of Catholic bishops are not like ecumenical councils. Ecumenical councils are something also divinely instituted. We see this in the early days of the Church, of the Council of Jerusalem. And so therefore they can be abolished, they can be adjusted, they can be changed. This is an important thing to remember. Somebody might see some Catholic, might see the title of this podcast, the USCCB should be disbanded. And they might think, wait, he wants to abolish the bishops? What is he, a Protestant? No, no, no, no, no, no. We do not, we do not want to abolish the bishops. The bishops are a necessary component of the Catholic Church. But a meeting, but the bishops in a certain country meeting twice a year in Baltimore or in a swanky hotel in D.C. or something like that, that can be abolished. The bureaucratic institution, all the administrate, all the administration and the jobs of the US working for the usccb, that can be abolished. [00:14:46] Those are not divinely instituted. So we are not calling here, I'm not calling Here for the abolishment of the bishops, the hierarchy of the bishops. I'm calling for the abolishment of the USCCB and frankly, probably all national conferences of Catholic bishops. [00:15:03] Let's look at, though, the history of the USCCB itself, because this will help us understand where, how we got to where we are. So again, in the, in the 19th century, so the 1800s, we see there were provincial councils of Baltimore. They started in 1829. There were regional meetings of bishops, particularly in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Why Baltimore? Because Baltimore is the first see of the United States. It has a certain precedence, it has a certain honor in the United States because it's the first episcopal see in the United States of the Catholic Church. [00:15:39] So and then there were plenary councils in Baltimore held in 1852, 1866, 1884. And these broader gatherings included bishops throughout across the country. In fact, in 1884, the Third Plenary Council was especially significant because it led to the creation of what the Baltimore Catechism. That's why it's called the Baltimore Catechism is because a council of Baltimore is the one that basically said, we need this catechism for our country. And that's what came out of it. And we all love the. We all should love the Baltimore Catechism. If we don't, we should. Baltimore Catechism is a wonderful tool and it came out of a council of bishops. So again, councils, even localized, regional national councils of bishops can be good. They can do very good things. But there's a difference between a council of bishops or synod, you could call it, and a conference of bishops. That's a key point. Council synods are not the same as conferences. Councils are one time things that happen for a specific reason. You might have more than one council over time, but. But the point is they're not a established set meeting. Okay, we're going to meet every, you know, twice a year, something like that. It's more like, hey, we have a need. Let's all get together and talk about it and make some decisions. That's a council. A conference is okay. We have this structure that is permanent. That is permanent. We have regularly fixed meetings and we have a whole administrative state around it. That's what a conference is. So again, let's have our distinctions here. [00:17:16] Okay, so then, so that was the 19th century in America. Then we have. In 1917, during World War I, the bishops sought to coordinate support for the war effort. Very good. And address the needs of Catholic soldiers and communities. This led to the creation of The National Catholic war Council, the NCWC. It was established in August 1970. 17. Sorry, August 1917. The NCWC was an emergency organization at first and chaired by bishop of the Bishop, the Cardinal Bishop of Baltimore, James Gibbons. [00:17:55] When the war ended in 1918, the bishops recognized the need. They felt there was a need for a permanent national body. And thus we have the predecessor to the usccb, the Pope, Benedict xv. The pope at the time encouraged them to continue this. And so it became a permanent entity called the National Catholic Welfare Council instead of the National Catholic War. [00:18:25] Let me make sure. Yeah, instead, the National Catholic War Council, the National Catholic Welfare Council. [00:18:32] And it then it became the National Catholic Welfare Conference. So now we got our conference in there. So basically from 1919 or so until 1966, in other words, until Paul VI wrote his moto proprio, kind of establishing, we need these established national conferences of Catholic bishops. That's how it kind of ran. And so it did different things. It had a board of director bishops, it had staff, it had lady handling various things. [00:19:00] And it focused on a lot of things. It focused on. On Catholic education, on immigration. Yes, immigration. Because remember, Catholics, a lot of Catholics were immigrating to this country even during that time. Labor rights, social justice, responses to anti Catholic sentiment, like they fighting against the Ku Klux KLAN in the 1920s. [00:19:20] But even back then, in the 1920s, if you do a little research on the history of the usccb, there were challenges within the Catholic Church to this organization. Some Vatican officials and some American Catholics question its authority, fearing it overstepped its bounds. So again, what we see here is a challenge too. What's the authority of this conference of bishops? Because ultimately, we know Jesus Christ directly gives authority to each bishop over his diocese. He is a direct successor to the apostles. [00:19:59] His authority does not flow from a conference of Catholic bishops. It does not flow from an ecumenical council. It does not flow even from the Pope. Now, the pope, of course, appoints him, but the point is, once he is instituted as the head of a diocese, his authority over the diocese is directly from Jesus Christ as a successor to the apostles. [00:20:21] This is very important to note. Therefore, an administrative organization like the USCCB or in this time, the ncwc, does not have authority over any individual bishop. It's really a consult. It should be a consultative body that tells the bishops, hey, here's what we think should be done. You know, it's the time to gather together. Let's get advice from other bishops. Let's maybe get some experts to give us some information to make our Decisions, things like that. But so we see already in the 1920s, there were some challenges. [00:20:56] Actually, a decree in 1922 by Pope Pius XI briefly threatened the dissolution of the ncwc, but it was reaffirmed with clarifications. It was a voluntary association, not a legislative body. That's important to note is Before Paul VI, Pope Paul VI, 1966, the NCWC was a voluntary association. It was not a legislative body. It became more of a legislative body then in 1966. So essentially in 1966, they restructured the NCWC into two entities, actually at this time, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the NCCB, and the United States Catholic Conference, the uscc. [00:21:41] This might get a little confusing, but let me just break down what each one did. The NCCB was the bishop's canonical body, focused on ecclesiastical and pastoral matters. So that's the nccb. [00:21:53] The USCC was a civil entity handling public policy, social concerns and administrative functions, including lay involvement. So the idea is you have this dual setup, and there's some. There's some. I think there's some value in this, if you really think about it, because it's very clear. One is more a canonical body of bishops focused on pastoral matters, ecclesiastical matters. So it really is a little bit more. Has a little more juice to it. And then the USCC is basically just a civil entity that's kind of dealing with politics, things in the country. From a Catholic perspective. There's a real divide between these 2. However, in 2001, they were consolidated into one organization called the United States Conference Catholic Bishops, the usccb. That's what we have today. The usccb so basically took this canonical body, the nccb, and it took the civil body entity, the uscc, and turned it into the usccb. That's what we have today, usccb. So it covers both, like canonical issues, plus also dealing with various aspects of civil society. [00:23:08] Okay. Hopefully I didn't bore anybody by those details, but I think they're important. I think a lot of people talk about the usccb, criticize it, compliment, whatever, without understanding what it is. And so that's what we have now. The question becomes for today. [00:23:23] Why are they involved in migrant services? [00:23:26] That's what really is the kind of the controversy right now. Why are they so involved in migrant services? [00:23:32] Well, I will say there is some backing for this in Vatican II itself. In Christus Dominus, again, I'll call that up this time, paragraph 18, it reads, Special concern should be shown for those among the faithful who, on account of their way of life, cannot sufficiently make use of the common and ordinary pastoral care of parish priests or quite cut off from it. Among this group are the majority of migrants, exiles and refugees, seafarers, air travelers, gypsies and others of this kind. Suitable pastoral methods should also be promoted to sustain the spiritual life of those who go to other lands for a time for the sake of recreation. So it's saying that there's people who come to a country who are kind of outside the system, outside the parish system. They can't sufficiently make use of the common ordinary pastoral care of parish priests, particularly migrants and refugees and exiles. And then Vatican II says episcopal conferences, especially national ones, should pay special attention to the very pressing problems concerning the above mentioned groups, I.e. migrants, exiled refugees, through voluntary agreement and united efforts, they should look to and promote their spiritual care by means of suitable methods and institution. [00:24:51] It should also. It goes on. [00:24:53] Okay, so what we see here is vacant to saying episcopal conferences should pay special attention to the pressing problems of migrants. But what kind of problems? [00:25:05] They're being cut off from pastoral care of parish priests and their spiritual life. It specifically says that. In other words, what vacant I'm saying is, listen, we think there's a possibility, there's a likelihood that migrants and exiles, refugees, they're going to have a hard time having their spiritual needs met when they come to a new country. They don't know where to go. They don't know who to look to. They just don't know what's going on, obviously, as far as who can they go to? Where can they go to? The parish church maybe has priests who can speak their, hear confessions in their language, you know, where can they go to meet other Catholics from their country where, you know, all these, the things a parish priest can help them with, a parish can help with them with their spiritual life, pastoral care. [00:25:55] They're often not going to be easily met. They just don't fit in very well at first. [00:26:01] So episcopal conferences should look into that. That's, that's what basically that is from Vatican II itself. So that's important. It's not that National Conference of Catholic Bishops, if they exist, should not be involved with helping migrants with migrant services, so to speak. But what should their focus be according to Vatican ii? The spiritual life of the migrants, the pastoral care they'd receive from a parish priest, that's what matters. Now, does that mean they would not in any way like a parish priest would also potentially help with their physical needs? Obviously, if he has a parishioner, a family in his parish that is in great need of food or something like that, or shelter. He's going to try to help them out. No question about that. But we see it's very much. It's not saying. [00:26:50] It doesn't say, for example, become an arm of the government in processing immigrants into this country or any country. It's saying the focus should be the spiritual life of the migrants and pastoral care for them. [00:27:05] Well, the usccb, or what they were called before, actually started this after World War II because World War II obviously caused a lot of problems and there was migration here and things of that nature. And USCCB started to help migrants with doing what VAC and II later called them to do. So good for them. [00:27:22] And there was nothing. And they did this without any government assistance from the federal government, at least. I haven't, like, researched to see if they ever got state funds. They might have at certain times, but they didn't get any help from the federal government when they started in, during, after World War II. [00:27:42] Then in 1980, that changed. [00:27:45] And this is very important. 1980 is a big deal, because 1980 is the year that the USCCB under the name they had back then, they declare they started to receive federal funds. And I'll read actually from the lawsuit, because it gives a little history. It says since 1980, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and its predecessor organization, the United States Catholic Conference, you know, the uscc, the usccb I'm sorry, the USCC have expanded that mission in partnership with the federal government through the U.S. refugee Admissions Program. [00:28:22] And basically what happened was is that the usccb, servicing federal funds to help with migration services. [00:28:32] And the way this works is USCCB receives hundreds of millions of dollars. They've received billions of dollars since 1980. [00:28:42] Typically lately it's been around a little bit over $100 million a year. [00:28:47] And they receive it. And what they do is they then farm out the services to subcontractors. So, for example, Catholic Charities of New York, Catholic Charities of El Paso, Catholic Charities of Los Angeles, whatever the case may be, they then distribute funds to them to implement that. So they have a whole organization. The USCCB itself has a whole staff that manages all of this at a top level, receive the funds, and then they distribute it and they subcontract it out to various organizations. This is very common, by the way, in how federal government programs work, is that the federal government will have a contractor, which is a private organization that does all this work and in the private organization subcontracts out to lots of different organizations. In fact, I ran a company back, you know, 20 some years ago in. In Washington, D.C. or a software company. We are a subcontractor to a government contractor. We did not have any government contracts ourselves, but what we did, we did work for government contractors who they themselves had contracts. So this is what's happening here. [00:29:49] Now, the lawsuit states, and I believe this is true, UCCB does not make money on this in the sense of. It's not like they're taking a profit from this. In fact, typically most years, they spend more on these services than they get from the federal government. They. Not much more. I think if I remember the numbers correctly, and then I might be off by a little bit here. So, you know, don't. Don't hold me to the exact numbers, but I believe they received, like, last year, a year before that, $129 million, and they spent 132 million. So the point is they. They're close to break even. They don't. But the. They don't, however, get, like, $130 million, spend only 100 million and pocket the 30 million for other things. In fact, if they did that, they would be in huge trouble with the federal government. I mean, there's very strict laws about what you can do with money from the federal government. Now, we've seen a lot of organizations are obviously finding ways around that. That's the whole U.S. aid scandal. But the point is, is, like, I don't believe. Personally, I don't believe the USCCB is, is taking the money and like, pocketing it for, like, mansions for bishops or, you know, parties or things like that. I'm sure there is waste in. In how it's done, because you can't get $130 million and not waste some of it, because just the bureaucracy alone. I don't think there's fraud, though, in the sense of them doing something that they. Doing something they say they're not doing or not doing something they say they're doing. [00:31:19] So what do they do specifically? What does USCCB do specifically when it comes to these migrant services? They quote from the lawsuit, they provide transitional assistance to refugees in the United States. So transitional assistance to refugees in the United States. [00:31:37] Transitional support for no more than their first 90 days in the United States. [00:31:42] And then they go on to say this transitional. They like the word transitional. This transitional assistance promotes the successful settlement of. Of refugees in their communities, including by promoting gainful employment or connections to educational opportunities, thereby diminishing the likelihood that newly arriving refugees will be dependent on ongoing public support. [00:32:05] So basically, what they're saying is a refugee comes to this country and they're claiming that they're all legal, they've all been vetted by the government. [00:32:14] I'm not even going to get into that right now. Let's just assume they are. I'm going to grant them that every single immigrant they've ever helped through these services through these funds is legally here and vetted by the government. [00:32:27] Okay? [00:32:29] But that being said, what they do is they say, okay, the first 90 days when somebody gets here, that the USCCB through these subcontractors like Catholic Charities, will provide services to them to help them transition to life in the United States through promoting gainful employment and connections to educational opportunities, things of that nature. [00:32:51] Let's note very clearly what they are not doing. They're not providing spiritual services with these funds. In fact, it would be illegal for them to do so because the whole separation church and state. [00:33:06] I'm not saying, by the way, separation church days is a good thing. I'm just simply stating if they use those funds to provide spiritual services, I guarantee that would not have continued very long. The, the money would have dried up. Their services are 100% supposed to be just simply helping them acclimate to the country by getting them, you know, transition to the country by helping them get employment, connections, education, educational opportunities, probably doing things like helping them find where to live, things of that nature. Maybe where to learn how to speak English, you know, I don't know things of that nature. I mean, that's the general gist of it. I work for a diocese. I saw Catholic Charities of the diocese do things like this. They, they, you know, there are a lot of things of that nature. [00:33:56] Never, though, is it directly spiritual help. Now, as Catholics, we are obliged to. To help people physically. We believe in both the spiritual works of mercy and the corporate works of mercy. [00:34:09] However, as Catholics, we also believe they're connected. You can't have one without the other. [00:34:16] If you help somebody spiritually and they're in a physical need, you have to help them physically. If you help somebody physically and they have a spiritual need, you have to help them spiritually. That is what it means to be a Catholic, to have mercy upon people, to exercise these works of mercy. You do both the corporal and the spiritual. However, because they're receiving federal funds, the USCCB has to divorce those two things. They have to divorce the corporal works of mercy from the spiritual works of mercy. And when you do that, you really weaken the witness of the church you greatly. Because what happens is the Catholic Church now Becomes in the eyes of these immigrants, no different than any secular help organization. [00:35:03] It. It's no different than if they were helped by a bunch of atheists. And that, in my opinion, is a scandal and is a shame because when Catholics help somebody, it's not that you say to them, oh, I'm not going to give you bread to eat unless you confess your sins, unless you get baptized, of course not. But it does say, okay, this person's in need spiritually and physically. I'm going to offer the system in both. That is what Catholics do when it comes to charity, because we know we are body and soul. You can't separate one from the other. To help somebody physically without helping them spiritually, that's awful. That's a slap in the face. Likewise, if you help somebody spiritually without helping them physically, if they need physical help, that's also a slap in the face. But by the very nature of this program being federally funded, it. It has to divorce those two things. [00:35:56] That I believe is the real scandal. Again, I am giving the benefit doubt to USCCB that every single person they've ever helped, every single member is legally here. They've been vetted by the government, that they've used every single dollar in an efficient manner. They've not had any fraud or waste. Let's assume all that. [00:36:15] It's still, however, goes against the way in which Catholics should do charity, which is we combine the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. It divorces those two things. [00:36:29] And so I think that's the real scandal here. Now, what about this lawsuit? I've. I'll link to it in the show notes so you'll see it. I've read it. I mean, it's like 30 some pages, I believe something like that. [00:36:42] Yeah, 35 pages. And essentially here's what happened. [00:36:47] The USCCB had a contract with the government to receive, I think in 2025, they currently were going to receive $65 million, they said. So a little bit less, but I imagine more would have been added if it had been. If Kamala Harris had been president. Right now, that just gives you the shutters to think about if she had become president. [00:37:08] But essentially. So they were operating under these funds. Now they don't get $65 million check. They get money over time for various services. Well, all of a sudden, I think it was January 28th, I believe it was. They received a notice from the State Department, I believe it was. It basically said due to recent executive order direct. Due to a recent executive order directing suspension of funding of foreign Aid and a vague suggestion that the awards not be consistent with the State Department's priorities. No more funds were given. The vague suggestion was the lawsuits language. Basically, what USCCB got noticed is saying because of recent executive order staying the suspension of funding for federal aid and because we believe this State Department talking, we believe this work you're doing is not consistent with the State Department's priorities. We, we're cutting off money. They didn't say we're going to cut it off next week. They didn't say we're going to cut off next month. They didn't say we're going to give you a little bit. They said we're just cutting it off dry today right now. Which is pretty harsh. Which is pretty harsh. I mean, we, let's, let's be honest. The USCCB is saying in their lawsuit, you can't do that for, for two main reasons. First, they're saying that the executive board doesn't mention this type of help. It's talking about foreign aid. And they're saying this is domesticated because these people are here in this country. Now they're also claiming that Congress controls the purse strings, not the executive branch. The executive branch can't do this. Now, I personally think that one's hilarious because, like, we followed the Constitution so exactly over the past, you know, decades. I mean, the Constitution is a joke. I mean, it's, Congress is supposed to declare wars, and the Congress hasn't declared a war since 1942 or whatever it is. And the president, you know, presidents have declared wars all the time, have basically started wars all the time. I mean, you know, that's kind of a joke, but that's what the USCCB is arguing. They're lawyers, I should say lawyers, by the way. They're paid for by your donations, so you're welcome. [00:39:11] And so essentially what they're saying is that because of this, we had to lay off 50 people. We had to basically stop paying the, our subcontractors, which is harming our reputation. They literally say that the USCCB is worried about their reputation being harmed. I mean, guys, I'm sorry, that ship sailed long ago. But what they mean is their ability to pay their subcontractors, their subcontractors are not going to think highly of them if they just stop paying them, but they have to stop paying them because they don't have any money left. [00:39:43] So that's essentially what the, and what the lawsuit is asking is for these payments to begin back up that essentially the executive branch, the State Department is not ABLE is not allowed to do that. And by the way, the lawsuit is against the Department of State and the Department of Health and Human Services because I don't understand why this is like this. But essentially the way it works is the State Department's kind of in charge of this, but then the money gets paid through hhs. So Marco Rubio and RFK are both named in this as well. So what the USCCB wants to do through this lawsuit, get the payments back going again. [00:40:15] Here's the problem as I see it, is the USCCB has lost the plot. I mean, they've really lost the plot. They see themselves not as a administrative body that's helping bishops advance the mission of the Catholic Church to save souls, but they see themselves eventually as an ngo, a non governmental organization that they have a job to do of helping migrants transition into this country with no, by the way, spiritual help involved in that, by law. [00:40:49] And so they, they, that's what they see themselves as. That is not what Vatican II called for. That is not even what Paul VI called for. That is not what the origin of national conferences of Catholic bishops are. [00:41:03] And that is really the problem here. They, they don't really see the, the fundamental, they don't really understand why conferences, Catholic bishops exist, but more importantly why the Church exists. Let's be honest. [00:41:17] And here's the other issue. [00:41:20] When you become dependent on federal government, you are beholden to the whims of the federal government. Remember I told you earlier that I was a subcontractor for a contractor? [00:41:32] Well, that contractor lost a major contract at one point and they lost a major contract through basically no fault of their own, like just changes in the, the department that they were working for made changes and they lost the contract. I lost my subcontract because they lost their contract. Guess what? There's nothing I could do about it. It hurt my business a lot. In fact, it's one of the reasons why I started looking into maybe, look, not working in software anymore and becoming, and working in the church like in theology and things of that nature. I'd been considering it for years and this was kind of the thing that was like a, that kind of kicked me a little bit to say, well, maybe this is a good time because I'm going to have to really build up the bit. That was a big percentage. I think it was like 60% of my revenue, which I shouldn't have done, but I did. But that's exactly what's happening here with usccb. They have built up this whole superstructure based upon receiving over $100 million of federal funds every year. Well, guess what? That means if a new administration comes in that doesn't want you to do it anymore, you lose it. [00:42:37] And you have to. You have to. That's just. That's just the way it is. USCCB is no different from anybody else. That happened to my business, it happened to that contractor I worked for, and it happened to usccb. That's just the way things are. The problem is this lawsuit. It just is such a terrible image for the Catholic Church, because here's the problem. I just went through how the USCCB kind of fits in the structure of the church. Most people aren't going to watch this podcast. They're not going to listen to this and understand that to most people in America, Catholics and non Catholics, the USCCB represents the Catholic Church in America. And what they look like now is a bunch of whiny brats who just want their money. [00:43:17] I'm not saying that's completely fair. I'm just saying that's the reality. And nobody there at the USCCB seems to understand that perception. How bad the perception is of the USCCB is among Catholics and even among non Catholics. I mean, they've dropped the ball in so many ways. They dropped the ball during COVID They dropped the ball with McCarrick. They've just continually dropped the ball. [00:43:40] And so even Catholics who love their local bishop, who think their. Their. Their own bishop is great, typically they have no respect for the usccb. They want their bishop. Almost have nothing to do with USCCB if possible. [00:43:53] If the usccb, if the Catholic bishop of this country want to help migrants, and I think they should, by the way, they need to do it the way they were doing it before they received federal funds. They need to do it with their spiritual and physical needs in mind. As soon as you receive federal funds, you cut off that ability to really help them out spiritually. And that is a scandal. I have no problem with USCCB at. The bishops want to say, hey, we need to help migrants with their spiritual life and their physical life. And so we're going to take up collections to do that. And then whatever the collection brings in, that's how much you can help them. If it doesn't bring in a lot, that's just a reality. You need to. You need to convince us better. If it brings in a ton, great, you can do tons of work. That's how the church should operate. It can only do what the money we have. It shouldn't be taking money, which is essentially taken from us by force, I. E. Our taxes or through inflation, printing it to be an ngo. [00:44:53] And so the USCCB has lost apply. And this is why I think I'm gonna. I've been going a little bit long today, longer than normal, but I think this is an important issue. [00:45:02] This is why I think, however, that this is why I think the USCCB should be disbanded. [00:45:09] Now here's the thing. I know it's not going to happen. I can't make it happen. No bishop can make it happen. It has to happen by the Vatican because like we've seen, the Pope made it mandatory and back in two. Essentially through back and two, they made it mandatory to have these conferences, national Episcopal conferences. And so they're not going to get disbanded tomorrow. I think they should though. I think they, they should. Again, it's not called to disband the college, the, the bishops, the order of bishops or the papacy or the hierarchy of the church, anything like that. We have as laity, from our perspective, we have a hierarchy. We should listen to our pastor, our local bishop, ecumenical councils and the Pope. That's, that's it. I don't really have to care what the bishop even of the neighboring diocese says. [00:45:57] I have to care what my bishop says. Yes. I don't have to care what the bishop won over or even the whole group of bishops in my country say. What I care about is what my bishop says when ecumenical council says what the Pope says. [00:46:10] The reality is, is that the national Episcopal conferences are an experiment that failed. They are not something that has made the church better at preaching the gospel, at fulfilling the mission of the church. I don't see how anybody could argue for that. I don't say anybody can argue that point. If you look at the history of conferences of national conferences of bishops, they're about 100, 150 years old. They've really been in place for about 60 years, you know, in required. [00:46:43] They have not done, they've not helped with the mission of church because ultimately that's what matters. Ultimately isn't, you know, can we be more efficient or anything like that? Can we administer things better? What matters is that can we advance the mission church to save souls? That's all that matters. Now I get you need to have administrative layers in an organization as large as the Catholic Church. You're going to have human instituted positions, staffing things of that nature. But I really think that the management of the Catholic Church should be more decentralized than it is now. I'm not calling for like a Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox way of doing things, but more in that direction. A more Eastern way, yes. Where a bishop is truly in charge of his diocese and he has true authority. He's not a middle manager for the USCCB or for the Vatican, but he's truly in charge. And when needs arise on a country level, you would say, hey, let's call a council here, let's call an American council of bishops like they did in Baltimore, do that. Yes, but it's not a permanent. As soon as you make it a permanent institution, that's when you add unnecessary layers of bureaucracy. [00:47:59] That's when you add these unnecessary layers of bureaucracy. A bishop should be in charge of caring for the souls in his diocese. So if migrants are in your diocese, a bishop should be doing all he can to help them spiritually and physically. [00:48:11] He needs to address their needs as much as any other, anybody else in his diocese. [00:48:18] But he's not responsible for worrying about the, the, the migration, immigrants in another diocese. Likewise with me. I mean, I, I could give to a diocesan effort to help migrants in my diocese, not throughout the whole world or even in my country. [00:48:35] And if there's some issue that is beyond the diocese, have a council, have a one off council, not a permanent bureaucratic administrative state. Because that's essentially what these national Episcopal conferences are. Return bishops to more robust duties, more robust responsibilities, where they run their dioceses, true successors to the apostles, instead of making them just simply middle managers as part of a national Episcopal conferences, the USCCB is not worth the time, money and effort. And in my opinion, it does more harm than good and it should be disbanded. [00:49:13] Okay, I'm going to stop it there. I think I made my opinion pretty obvious. Hopefully this was helpful for people understanding how these national Episcopal conferences work, how the USCCB works, why it's involved in migrant services, why it's suing the federal government, and why ultimately, I think, and I think all Catholics should think that the USCC should be disbanded. And by the way, also, I don't think we should in any way financially support the USCCB as lay Catholics, that's the only way our voice is heard. So if you can help it, find ways not to financially support the usccb. Okay, that's it for now. Until next time, everybody. God love.