(Lepanto Institute) — 63 million. It’s a number so large the human mind can scarcely comprehend what it means. If we were to stack 63 million $1 bills, the stack would be about 2,718 feet high, which is just one foot higher than the tallest building in the world – the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. 63 million miles is the distance from Earth to Mars during its closest approach. Out of 197 countries in the world, 174 have populations of less than 63 million.
And yet, since 1973, the United States alone has murdered 63 million people through decriminalized abortion. Joseph Stalin, the tyrannical, murderous dictator of Communist Russia, is oft remembered for having said, “The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic,” but despite the number on a ledger sheet or the various ways in which one attempts to comprehend the deaths of millions, one thing remains: every single one of those millions is a unique, unrepeatable, and immortal soul. Every. Single. One.
To wrap one’s mind around the murder of 63 million babies, all that is needed is to assume the point of view of each one. Each of those babies was once in a warm, safe, and nurturing environment, and then each was either killed with chemicals or systematically pulled apart.
But here’s another way of looking at the number 63 million – it’s about 27 times more in dollars than the budget of the pro-life office of the USCCB. Here’s what I mean – the pro-life activities office of the USCCB had a budget of approximately $2.3 million in 2017. To put that into perspective, the USCCB’s office of migration and refugee services had a budget that same year of $82 million; $76.4 million of which came from the federal government.
In fact, the average budget for the pro-life activities office of the USCCB from 2014-2021 (the only years in their annual reports indicating these figures) is $2.164 million. On the other hand, the office of migration and refugee services during that same period has an average operating budget of $73.5 million.
Now, one would expect the Catholic Church to be heavily invested in the defense of preborn children. Considering that it has been the Catholic Church who has forcefully condemned abortion and contraception many times over the last 100 years, and it was Catholics who first rushed to the defense of preborn babies after abortion was decriminalized in 1973, it only makes sense that the defense of preborn children would be the “pre-eminent issue” for the Catholic bishops of the United States. In fact, it was just a little over a year ago that Cardinal Robert McElroy argued against maintaining the idea that abortion is a pre-eminent issue with his brother bishops. It was put to a vote, and the bishops voted 225-11 to maintain abortion as a “preeminent priority” for the bishops.
But it’s all lip service, and their actions as a body prove it!
If abortion was the preeminent priority, we should expect that this would be the number one thing the bishops raise funds for, lobby the government about, preach about from the pulpit, and condemn politicians for when pro-abortion initiatives are put to a vote. But the USCCB does next to nothing to combat the murder of preborn children, while spending gobs of cash on facilitating the resettlement of people entering this country illegally.
The USCCB’s annual financial reports for 2022 and 2023 don’t even mention the pro-life activities office, but they do show that the budget for migration and refugee services jumped to $127 million and $134 million, respectively. What’s even worse, though, is that despite the fact that the USCCB pulls in the vast majority of its migration and refugee services budget from the federal government, it STILL takes up a collection for this program and does NOT take up a collection for pro-life activities. “Pre-eminent issue”???
But it’s even worse than this.
Every year, the USCCB takes up a collection for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), averaging about $10 million annually. That’s just about five times the budget for the pro-life activities office, and the grants sent out by the CCHD go to a large number of pro-abortion organizations every year. In fact, in 2022 – right after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade – the network of CCHD-funded affiliates called Faith in Action publicly denounced the SCOTUS decision and vowed to “fight for women.”
Since 2016, the CCHD had provided $4.85 million to affiliate members of Faith in Action, including a $500,000 strategic grant that went to the network itself. In other words, the USCCB is taking up annual collections to give money to the enemies of life, while never collecting funds for pro-life activities, giving that office a paltry budget of about $2.3 million.
But it gets even worse!
The USCCB also takes up an annual collection for Catholic Relief Services (CRS) which pulls in about $17 million on average. Not only does CRS not need this collection, given that it has an annual operating budget of nearly $1 billion – again, most of which comes from the federal government – but CRS ALSO is acting in direct contravention with the Church’s teaching on human life!
I have personally been investigating and reporting on CRS’ activities since 2011, and, last March, we published a 130-page report proving that CRS is facilitating the encouragement of the use and distribution of contraception and condoms. We also proved that CRS was financially supporting organizations promoting and facilitating abortions. CRS was even sending young girls to those abortion providing organizations as a part of the government-funded operations it was implementing. So, again, while the USCCB is NOT taking up a collection for pro-life activities and providing a pittance of a budget (roughly 1.2 percent of the USCCB’s overall operating expenses), it is directly involved in the Culture of Death with Catholic funds!
But then, if you can believe it, it gets even worse!
Every year, the USCCB and CRS go to Capitol Hill to lobby Congress to increase funding to USAID, PEPFAR, and the Global Fund, among other agencies. Those three organizations are the world’s largest suppliers of abortifacients, and the Global Fund even provides grants to abortion enthusiasts like Planned Parenthood!
The claim that abortion is the “pre-eminent priority” of the USCCB is an abominable lie!
How the bishops of the United States can claim to make fighting abortion their top priority with straight faces is beyond comprehension. It clearly isn’t a top priority, if it’s even a priority at all. They pay lip-service to the fight against abortion (though some bishops do authentically fight on a personal and diocesan level against abortion) while financially supporting the enemies of life.
Lord have mercy!
Pray for the bishops! If we don’t, who will? In the meantime, start asking the bishops if fighting abortion is a top priority for the USCCB, and, if it is, ask them to explain why there’s never been a pro-life collection and why the pro-life activities office ranks among the lowest-funded offices at the USCCB. If we can open the eyes of even a few bishops willing to ask the tough questions, we might be able to see the beginning of some kind of shift, and then the fight against abortion can actually be made a priority.
Republished with permission from the Lepanto Institute.