Trump's nominee for ambassador to the Vatican defends recent cuts to US foreign aid

President Donald Trump's nominee for ambassador to the Vatican defended many of the administration's foreign-aid cuts at a Senate hearing Tuesday, even while saying Catholic charitable groups are well-equipped to deliver such aid efficiently.

Brian Burch — whose Chicago-based organization, CatholicVote, endorsed Trump in the 2024 election and helped lead a successful effort to boost Catholic support for the Republican winner — testified before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in preparation for a Senate confirmation vote.

Burch, who has echoed some of the criticisms of Pope Francis voiced by other American Catholic conservatives in recent years, referred briefly to the pontiff in his opening remarks, thanking Americans for their prayers for Francis during his recent hospitalization.

He spoke more generally of the Vatican as having a unique role in foreign affairs: ''The moral witness of the Holy See, together with its global influence, make it a key partner for an array of U.S. interests,'' he said, including the promotion of peace and defending the poor and vulnerable. If confirmed, Burch would be representing Trump to a pontiff who in February denounced the administration's plans for mass deportations of migrants.

Burch faced some skeptical questioning from Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the ranking Democrat on the committee.

She cited a statement from Caritas Internationalis, a confederation of Catholic humanitarian agencies worldwide, that the Trump administration's abrupt halt to funding to the U.S. Agency for International Development ''will kill millions of people and condemn hundreds of millions more to lives of dehumanizing poverty."

Shaheen asked Burch how he would ''reassure the Holy See that the United States really is committed to saving the lives of those in need.''

Burch replied that Catholic nongovernmental organizations, which often partner with U.S. aid programs, have ''some of the best, some of the lowest cost of overhead and some of the most effective and most impactful programs.''

But he went on to support some cuts to foreign aid, contending that ''millions if not billions of our dollars have been going to places around the world that are not aligned with the United States' interests.''

Shaheen replied that foreign aid comprises only about 1% of the federal budget and asked Burch to name examples of aid that conflicted with U.S. foreign policy. Burch said he had read stories about funding for ''transgender mice experiments.''

Shaheen replied that that claim has been used to justify cuts but "that is just not the case."

The hearing came a day after the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops announced that in the wake of cuts in federal refugee resettlement funding, it would not renew a cluster of funding agreements with the federal government to aid migrants such as refugees and unaccompanied children. That set of agreements is separate from foreign-aid funding.

Republican committee members asked for and received assurances from Burch that he would urge the Vatican to continue defending the rights of Christians facing persecution around the world.

When asked about a Vatican agreement giving China a say in the appointment of bishops in that country, Burch said he would urge the church not to ''cede or surrender to any government, China or otherwise, the selection of their bishops.'' He said it's important for the Vatican to advocate for human rights in China and maintain relations with Taiwan.

Burch is the president and co-founder of CatholicVote. He and his wife, Sara, have nine children and live in the Chicago suburbs.

Burch has in the past criticized Pope Francis on issues such as his crackdown on some of his most strident conservative critics and his approval of a 2023 Vatican statement allowing clergy to bless same-sex couples under certain conditions.

AP VoteCast, an extensive survey of November's election, found that 22% of voters identified as Catholic and that Trump, a Republican, won 55% of this group. In 2020, the Catholic vote was essentially split between Trump and Joe Biden, a Democrat who became the nation's second Catholic president. Trump describes himself as a nondenominational Christian.

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