(LifeSiteNews) — A LifeSiteNews reporter told former Trump adviser Steve Bannon on Tuesday that Catholics are urging the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB) for the mishandling of massive funds from the government for the resettlement of “refugees.”
Doug Mainwaring told Bannon over a video call that he, the Lepanto Institute’s Michael Hichborn, Kevin Posobiec, and over 20 other Catholics were assembled outside the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception during Cardinal Robert McElroy’s installation Mass to “ask the President and Vice President to launch a RICO investigation into the USCCB.”
“They’ve received hundreds of millions of dollars. Supposedly that all goes to the resettlement of illegal immigrants. But in the midst of all that, supposedly 300,000 children are just missing. And we’ve gotta assume some bad things have happened to them,” Mainwaring said.
“But there has to be accountability for that, and how those funds were used,” he added.
The Catholics present outside the Basilica on Tuesday also protested against McElroy for allegedly covering up abuses by ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick. Among the protesters was Rachel Mastrogiacomo, a survivor of ritual sexual abuse perpetrated by then-Fr. Jacob Bertrand, formerly incardinated in the Diocese of San Diego, where McElroy was previously bishop.
Mastrogiacomo calls McElroy “the poster boy” for the Catholic Church in America’s criminal response to sexual abuse.
Late last month, President Donald Trump’s administration canceled two refugee resettlement contracts with the USCCB amid the bishops’ lawsuit against the administration for halting funding to help the USCCB resettle refugees.
The USCCB has played an enormous role in the resettlement of illegal immigrants in the U.S.: The USCCB’s Migration and Refugee Services is the largest refugee resettlement agency in the world. As part of this program, it has intermediated federal grants to local Catholic Charities and affiliated organizations for the care of unaccompanied alien children (UAC).
Catholic Charities, in particular, directly manages the day-to-day care for many UACs and has received intense scrutiny for placing children with unvetted sponsors, even after reports emerged that some of these children ended up in forced labor, sex trafficking, or other forms of abuse.
Catholic NGOs, including the USCCB, received nearly $3 billion in federal funding for immigration-related activities during the Biden years, according to recent reports.
A group of prominent Catholics, including Janet Smith and Elizabeth Yore, and clergy abuse victims, recently sent a letter to Vice President JD Vance stating:
We request that a RICO investigation be undertaken into how the USCCB dispersed funds received from USAID. Investigating the Church will not be easy; it has a long record of lack of transparency and refusal to cooperate with law enforcement. Former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating, who headed the USCCB’s National Review Board charged with investigating clerical sexual abuse, resigned after comparing some bishops to the Mafia.
We are prepared to help the government investigate the Church. We have access to some whistleblowers about how the USCCB and the NGOs have misappropriated the money entrusted to them.
