USAID Funding Cuts May Eliminate Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion in U.S.

Washington D.C. – Many unexpected organizations, policies, and programs are feeling the fallout from the massive cuts imposed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is among them. We here at IIT already reported over the last few weeks that due to this cut, they will no longer be able to fund a transgender Pachamama statue for each parish as they had originally hoped to be able to install by the end of the year.

However, what we hadn’t realized until today are some of the less obvious effects of the cut in USAID funding to the USCCB. The USCCB, it appears, according to our undercover investigative reporter Sophia Donaldson, not only uses USAID funding for the “Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion” program at most diocesan parishes but also uses such funding to “pressure any reluctant parishes and pastors into adopting them.”

One member of the USCCB central committee commented to Sophia (undercover), that “we might not be able to continue paying for the extra chalices, ciboria, medals, etc. to keep the whole game going unless the funding cuts are reversed. This would lead to many parishes abandoning necessary efforts of inclusion for active participation of women and people of color in Mass, and could lead to a dangerous spread in priests distributing Holy Communion by their heteronormative, patriarchal, old-fashioned selves alone.”

What’s more, the USAID grant to the USCCB known as “Active Participation by BIPOC, Women, and Furries Within Ecumenical EMOHC Roles” issued in 2015 and renewed each year since, is only the tip of the iceberg of the reliance of many core progressive Catholic staples on federal funding. Female altar servers, DOGE has also revealed today, are also funded by USAID through a program grant entitled “Equal Altar Access Amendment Funding” that has also been used to fund liberal protest mobs pushing for women’s ordination.

The USCCB central committee, already under intense pressure from Trump’s tariffs on the Novus Ordo and other related imports of theological liberalism, is facing an 85% funding cut through this spending program and therefore just can’t afford to pay for the albs necessary for female altar servers throughout the country or the lobbyists they’ve also been paying to pressure recalcitrant priests into adding the practice to their parish. “Things could be looking dangerously traditional if these cuts continue,” the USCCB central committee member commented to our undercover reporter.

We are also investigating a lead that Vatican II and the Novus Ordo mass itself were the first two projects funded by USAID. No confirmation yet, but there was a federal government check to someone named “Bugini” with the memo line “Write us a new Mass” that we received access to. We will let you know the results of this investigation as soon as we’ve reached a decisive conclusion.