While the U.S. bishops have maintained that abortion is their 'preeminent priority,' their actions tell a different story, according to the Lepanto Institute founder and president.
(LifeSiteNews) — In a video clip that Bishop Joseph Strickland encouraged faithful Catholics to watch, Michael Hichborn, founder and president of the Lepanto Institute, called out the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) for funneling 90 percent of their annual budget to illegal immigrant resettlement projects while investing only 1 percent toward pro-life efforts.
“The USCCB has a massive budget of around $200 million, and 90 percent (90%) of that budget went to immigration, refugee resettlement stuff,” explained Hichborn, yet only “One percent (1%) of that budget was used for pro-life activities.”
“Do you realize (that) annually the USCCB collects all kinds of money for immigrant refugee resettlement programs, and never once has it ever collected for pro-life activities?” he asked.
“Not once,” he emphasized.
While the U.S. bishops have maintained that abortion is their “preeminent priority,” their actions tell a different story.
“If it was a preeminent priority, wouldn’t you make it a fiscal priority? Wouldn’t you make it a policy priority?” Hichborn asked. “But they don’t even do that.”
Hichborn suggested that the opposite is true, revealing a different set of unspoken priorities at the bishops’ conference.
“The USCCB gives out tens of millions of dollars to organizations through the Catholic Campaign for Human Development fighting against life,” he said, “fighting in favor of abortion and contraception and homosexuality.”
Perhaps even more troublingly, earlier in his hourlong conversation with John Yep, CEO of Catholics for Catholics, Hichborn suggested that the members of the USCCB – many of whom for decades covered up instances of priest sexual predation, mostly involving homosexual pederasty – shouldn’t be trusted to fund the care of unaccompanied minors who have come across the porous southern border.
“The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops received $129 million (in federal funding) for the resettlement of refugees in the United States. Thirty million of that was spent on an unaccompanied child program,” Hichborn noted.
“How wise is it to give $30 million to an organization that has paid out $5 billion in sex abuse settlements for resettling unaccompanied children?” he wondered.
“The number one facilitators of illegal immigration in this country are the U.S. Catholic bishops,” Hichborn stated later in the conversation.
“And who better to shuffle people around in a hidden manner than bishops who are well-practiced in it when it came to the sex abuse crisis from 20 years ago?” he asked.
“This whole situation is such a black eye on the Catholic Church,” Hichborn said, “and the bishops are scrambling, trying to do damage control.”
“People have stopped listening to the USCCB because they’ve lost credibility.”
