Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 30, 2025 / 17:43 pm (CNA).
President Donald Trump passed the 100-day mark of his second presidency on Tuesday, April 29, a period that has been packed with major policy shifts, more than 130 executive orders, and over 200 lawsuits.
Trump won the country’s Catholic vote by double digits last November and since then has received praise from Catholics on several issues but skepticism and even legal challenges on others.
Actions that have received the enthusiastic endorsement of many Catholics include the administration’s initial pro-life efforts, religious liberty protections, and moves to extricate gender ideology from the government. However, the president’s embrace of in vitro fertilization (IVF), his hard-line immigration policies, and his funding cuts to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have caused tensions with the bishops and Catholic groups.
Pro-life victories and shortfalls
“It’s pretty clear that [Trump] has done almost everything that he could to reverse the different pro-abortion policies of the [President Joe] Biden administration,” Joseph Meaney, a past president and senior fellow of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, told CNA.
Meaney noted that Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, which bans funding for overseas organizations that promote abortion, and backs the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits direct federal funding for abortion. The president also announced plans to freeze millions of taxpayer dollars for Planned Parenthood, which Meaney said is used “to subsidize their abortion business.”
He added that the administration is revising agency and departmental rules and regulations that are related to abortion, and much of the Biden-era policies have been rescinded or “are going to be reversed.” This includes the last administration dropping conscience protections for health care providers on abortion-related issues, instituting rules that employers must grant leave for an employee to obtain an abortion, and the Pentagon paying workers to travel for abortions, among other pro-abortion initiatives.
Trump also directed the United States to rejoin the Geneva Consensus Declaration, which is a coalition of countries that support pro-life and pro-woman policies.
Meaney praised Trump’s decision to pardon 23 “peaceful, nonviolent pro-lifers” who were convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, adding that many people in the pro-life movement believed “there had been a policy on the part of the previous administration to go after pro-lifers in an unreasonable way.”
However, Trump’s executive order to create a plan to boost IVF access is “highly objectionable [and] problematic from a pro-life perspective,” he said. Rather than the deregulation backed by Trump, he said “there needs to be a lot more health and safety and other restrictions.”
Trump also signed an executive order directing the nation’s attorney general to pursue the death penalty in federal cases, especially for murders of police officers. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) criticized this order.
Moving forward, Meaney said he hopes the administration will impose regulations on the abortion pill mifepristone, which he said is “probably the No. 1 issue” currently. It was deregulated in the last two Democratic administrations, but Meaney said reimposing the original safeguards is “very, very doable” for the Trump administration.
Religious liberty, gender ideology, and education wins
On religious liberty policies, “the Trump administration has done what you would hope it would do,” Peter Breen, the head of litigation at the Thomas More Society, told CNA.
“The speed and the vigor of these efforts is 10 times the speed of the first administration,” Breen said. ”They are moving at lightning speed.”
Trump created the White House Faith Office and established a task force on anti-Christian bias to review and revise federal policies throughout federal departments and agencies that threaten religious liberty. This includes a Biden-era rule on “gender identity” discrimination that could have barred Catholic institutions from federal contracts, according to the USCCB.
The bishops were concerned the rule would end contracts with Catholic hospitals if they did not perform transgender surgeries on children and end contracts with foster care providers that did not place children with same-sex couples.
Another Biden-era rule sought to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions in emergency rooms if the abortion is considered a “stabilizing treatment.”
The new office and the task force are specifically “dealing with some of the issues that we have been working on for our clients,” Breen said.
“The fact that he has so vigorously advanced the cause of religious liberty and the full inclusion of people of faith and their ministries in the government and regular life — that is a real achievement,” Breen added. “That is going to have a lasting impact.”
Moving forward, Breen said it’s important to look at “enforcement actions” to ensure officials are following through with the president’s directives to safeguard religious liberty.
In addition to Trump’s policies directly focused on religious liberty, Breen noted that federal promotion of gender ideology “has mostly come to a stop.” The president signed an executive order that defined a “woman” as an “adult human female” and rejected definitions based on a person’s “self-asserted gender identity” for the purpose of federal rules and regulations, which reversed the standard of the previous administration.
Trump further clarified Title IX protections for gender-related education policies with executive actions. Those policies prohibit biological men from participating in women’s sports and ensure that locker rooms, bathrooms, and other private facilities are separated on the basis of biological sex rather than self-asserted gender identity.
Susan Hanssen, a professor of American history at the University of Dallas (a Catholic institution), told CNA that in her estimation, Trump’s order to scale back and eventually eliminate the U.S. Department of Education is “the greatest triumph of Trump’s first 100 days in office from the point of view of Catholic social teaching.”
“Any action that will make it easier for parents to exert their authority over how their children are educated, bringing control over education down to the state and local levels, enabling charter schools, school voucher programs, etc., are fundamental to pro-family policy,” Hanssen said.
“The fact that the Department of Education has also been ideologically hijacked by progressive educational theories, the vested interests of teachers unions, LGBT ideology, and critical race theory makes it all the more urgent to liberate families to find and fund the education they want for their children,” she added.
Immigration and Catholic NGO funding tensions
Trump’s immigration policies over his first 100 days in office have created tensions with Catholic bishops, particularly over his plans to conduct mass deportations of immigrants who entered the country illegally and his actions to freeze federal funds for NGOs that resettle migrants.
In February, the USCCB sued the Trump administration after the freeze halted funds to several Catholic NGOs that received funds to provide these services. The USCCB is currently phasing out its migration programs, which were primarily funded with federal money. Catholic Charities agencies across the country cut programs and laid off employees after losing federal funding.
“For more than 100 years, the Catholic Church has consistently supported and advocated for immigrants and refugees arriving in the United States,” Julia Young, a historian and professor at The Catholic University of America, told CNA.
“The loss of funds related to refugee resettlement threatens to derail a very important element of that work,” she added. “Yet Catholic organizations and the Catholic hierarchy, which are driven by Catholic social teaching to minister to the poor and needy, will certainly continue to find ways to respond to the needs of migrants and refugees in the United States.”
Trump froze most of the country’s foreign aid funding as well, which impacted several Catholic NGOs. Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) were both forced to cut programs and lay off staff as a result.
JRS spokeswoman Bridget Cusick told CNA the freeze “had immediate negative consequences for people who have fled persecution, oppression, abuse, insecurity, discrimination, and lack of opportunity.”
“JRS was compelled to suspend operations in nine countries, including those that provided critical, lifesaving care,” Cusick said.
“Two of our programs were later reinstated, but we estimate that the changes we were forced to make impacted more than 100,000 people, including unaccompanied children,” she continued. “Thanks to the support of the Jesuit network, our board, and others, we have found ways to keep impacted programs running, but in dramatically reduced fashion, leaving thousands at risk.”
Cusick said JRS “will continue its work, but we are deeply concerned that the U.S. and indeed, other countries cutting foreign aid, seem to be trying to deny the existence of a refugee crisis, even as more than 120 million people in the world remain displaced.”
Hanssen alternatively noted that some foreign aid programs were being used to promote gender ideology and population control in other parts of the world and praised the dismantling of such programs.
USAID had become “riddled with skewed grant programs that ‘ideologically colonize’ developing countries — many of them Catholic countries in Africa and Latin America — by tying economic assistance to population control, gender ideology, and leftist political agendas,” Hanssen pointed out.
The freeze in the international funding for NGOs has also been the subject of several lawsuits.
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It’s undeniable. The U.S. bishops have blood on their hands.
Their stance on open borders has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands due to overdoses of drugs smuggled into the country by the millions of unsupervised immigrants.
And the bishops are complicit as well in human trafficking and the sexual abuse of minors that has occurred because of the unfettered influx of predators and criminals.
As horrific as these realities are, it’s even harder to realize that our bishops were bought and paid for by the billions of taxpayer dollars funneled into Church coffers by a government that was looking for assistance in committing its crimes.
brineyman, you summed up very well where the Church in the USA stands in 2025.
Even good intentions can have tragic consequences. Every migrant who’s smuggled here profits the cartels & that creates more violence & turf wars in Mexico & Latin America.
They discovered a ranch in Jalisco recently with piles of clothing & the remains of many cartel victims. Young people are lured with promises of legit employment & if they refuse to work with the cartels, they’re tortured & killed.
Illegal immigration is, by definition, a violation of our laws. Does the Catholic Church sanction the breaking of law?
Catholics in the USA support LEGAL immigration. We do NOT support an invasion of our country by those who come here as violators of our laws. Any dolt would be able to comprehend this. However, some in our Church obviously do not. Must they be schooled in Common Sense?
I think it’s actually worse than the absence of common sense. At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, there seems to be something deeply malevolent about encouraging, sanctioning, and supporting illegals. I could be naive, but I don’t think people are that stupid.
In contrast to Europe, immigrants to the United States (especially “illegal” immigrants) are overwhelmingly Christian, and mainly Catholic in background. In contrast to Europe, immigration is reinforcing the United States’ Christian background. Why go through the socially divisive uprooting of ten million hardworking Catholics in order to replace them with “English-speaking” Hindus and Sikhs, as Stephen Miller and Musk desire?
Just curious, but who is paying you to troll this site and repeatedly post this ridiculously false and manipulative immigration narrative here? Immigrants might be nominally Christian, but that does not mean that they are sincere and authentic disciples of Christ. You have no basis for making that assertion. And why are you propagating the lie that all of these millions of people are “hard working?” Hard working honest people do not need government handouts in the form of social security benefits, medicaid, and money for cell phones, cars, food, and housing. I’ll take educated, law-abiding, productive, and self-sufficient Hindus and other East Asians over uneducated, unskilled “christians” from South America any day. They will contribute far more to our society than they are likely to take.
It’s silly to suggest that ten million Catholic “illegals” are surviving on government handouts. US industry and agriculture is largely surviving on their low wages, for jobs many WASPs will not do. If you prefer Hindus and Sikhs over the Catholics, you will only erode what’s left of a Christian country even sooner.
Gang members, drug smugglers, human traffickers – I don’t care if they’re Catholic in background, it’s their behavior that matters. And the illegal immigrants (who are criminals by that very fact even if they are not committing those other crimes) provide cover for them, as people moan about “Oh, those hardworking people.”
Migrants are in truth hardworking people & could be a great asset to the US. But the way they’re brought here & extorted by organized crime is not the way to run our immigration system. It also causes further violence in Latin America & profits & strengthens the cartels.
Of course they’re not gang members. 99% of them are hard working. They have to be, because their status means they are paid less. If entering the country without papers makes them criminals, then so we’re the vast majority of those who poured into Texas, and then revolted against Mexico because it wouldn’t let them keep their slaves. Accept the facts on the ground. The US is a bilingual country now, with two civilisations. Rejoice. The harder the WASPs push against Hispanic Catholic culture, the worse it will be. Stephen Miller, that model of ‘Christendom”, has arrived to late.
I have absolutely nothing against Hispanic Catholic culture – far otherwise. I object to illegal aliens, whatever their ethnic or religious cultures.
And you aren’t likely to find many WASPS on this website.
As Catholics there are some things Trump has done, as the article points out, that have been good for the faithful. But at what price? Consider the way Trump continually lies. And if you want examples I can give you plenty. Small one: He said egg prices were going down when they were going up. He promised transparency. Amazon decided to show the cost of tariffs in their prices. Good idea, right? Not according to Trump. He yelled at Jeff Bezos who backed down. Consider ICE agents snapping people off the street and sending them to Louisiana without the right to an attorney and kept hidden from family. Look at the way Vance and Trump treated Zelensky. Look at the way Trump admires such dictators as Putin and Kim. Yes some good things mixed with some awful things.
This illegal immigration problem is not child’s play; someone needs to stop it or we’ll go bankrupt. Top Dems have given speeches about it.
If the illegal is working and contributing, perhaps there can be a 5 year reconciliation phase. The ones who work are doing the dirty work we won’t do or can’t due to our conditions as an aging and often obese and sickly people. Too frequently, our young people don’t know how to work.
He’s correct in the USA getting the short end of the stick way too often; we cannot finance all the world’s problems, and we’re running up debt to do so.
brineyman, you summed up very well where the Church in the USA stands in 2025.
Charles Lewis, you have a terminal case of TDS. Get help immediately.
Interesting you cite egg prices as against Trump, but nothing about him doing what he did to free Catholics, who were against abortion, put in prison by the Biden regime. Each country has a right to establish its border laws. The Biden Regime ignored them that now Trump is fixing. Just because you want cheap labor to cut your grass is no reason to support illegal immigration.
But no doubt in your mind the TDS reins supreme. BTW last I checked egg prices are down.
Trump does not “admire” Putin, and it’s dishonest for you to state that. As for Zelensky, he is happy to receive millions of American dollars, with no accountability as to how and where that money is being spent. He is more than happy about a protracted war with no discernable end in sight. It’s time for that war to end, and Trump is correct is holding Zelensky’s feet to the fire to bring it to an end.
So much untrue in your post that I wont bother to specifically reply. Outright lies about egg prices and “snapping people off the streets”. Everyone arrested had already been served with a deportation order or has a violent arrest record. If thats the type of illegal who you want to protect, it wont take much for me to figure you are a democrat.For whom rules to protect INNOCENT people mean nothing. Like enforcing borders. As far as tariff costs from Amazon, LOADS of countries have tariffs but yet until now, places like Amazon have chosen not to show them as a separate item. Its irrelevant to the bottom line anyway, but it could not be more obvious as a slandering political attack. Just disgusting. The left needs to promote slander to the uninformed because their policies cant stand under their own weight.
I forgot to mention. Trump lied about 2020 election. 61 out of 62 courts said not steal. Even his hand-picked Supreme Court wouldn’t hear his appeal. That lie lead to the riots on Jan. 6. This is not a good man, even if he did a few things for Christians. I also get that the alternative, Harris, was no alternative. I pray for a candidate I can love one day. Someone with a Christian sensibility but with a good heart who tells the truth.
Charles Lewis: You obviously have a terminal case of TDS; get help immediately.
Your TDS is embarrassing.
More lies. Most courts refused to hear the case–“no jurisdiction”, “no standing”, blah, blah, blah. . That is NOT the same as saying the charges had no validity. Legality is not the same as justice.
“Immigration tension continues.” Where is this alleged “tension,” and who is reporting it? The immigration issue is a no-brainer, and there is certainly no tension involved for those who see it accurately and honestly. People who violate our national sovereignty and federal laws by entering the country illegally are technically criminals, and they should be treated as such.
The USCCB and Catholic Charities have been revealed to be nothing more than a government agency and psuedo-charity that function as payrolled bureaucrats involved in what is known as “ “poverty pimping,” and are brazen liars who are all fully aware that they were profiting (obscenely so) from their willful collaboration in the global illegal immigration scam.
They have prostituted themselves and polluted the Church in the US.
Their leadership should be put on trial for the crimes of trafficking unaccompanied children and young people into prostitution and slavery.